My cousin David Guas is a pretty swell dude. He’s from here and got his start in local restaurants but now lives in the Washington D.C. area where he has a restaurant called Bayou Bakery.
At the moment, he’s in Poland, not far from the border with Ukraine, working with World Central Kitchen to get food to refugees from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A warm, nourishing meal can do a lot for someone who’s in distress.
Ask folks in Louisiana who received one of the hundreds of thousands of meals WCK provided – largely made by local cooks and in partnership with the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute after Ida and they’re also working to get food to people affected by the tornado that blew through on March 22.
When I reached out to WCK, they sent me the following:
The WCK Relief Team along with our partner NOCHI quickly activated to provide hot meals and sandwiches for communities impacted by the tornadoes. We will be further assessing need and scaling our response by working with local restaurants, many of which we’ve worked with in the past.
After Ida, WCK and NOCHI got things up and running incredibly quickly, and they hired a bunch of local cooks to do it. They ended up serving around a half-million meals to people who would otherwise have gone hungry. It’s the sort of thing that makes one feel better about humanity. Perhaps that’s just me?
If you have any interest in the subject, you can read about what WCK is doing here. You can visit their website, linked above, to find all the different ways to donate but if you’re like me, you’ll want to go to the “donate once” page, which is here.
I’m a fan of WCK and I would be regardless of my cousin David’s participation. I think the work they do is important and the support they give to local restaurants/cooks where they operate is essential. I hope you’ll help their efforts here and if you like what they do here that you’ll help them generally.
I also hope that all of you came through the tornado without issue, and that if you were impacted, you have a speedy recovery.
