Mercy Chefs’ Leblanc Named 2024 Community Champion

Educational Foundation honors New Orleans native for charitable contributions, providing relief to disaster victims.

Nov 11, 2024 - 13:19
Nov 11, 2024 - 12:20
Mercy Chefs’ Leblanc Named 2024 Community Champion
LeBlanc’s career took on a more altruistic turn when Mercy Chefs was born.

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, Chef Gary LeBlanc discovered he had a strong motivation to help people affected by natural disasters by providing food.
 
The Louisiana native, a hotel restaurant operator and 35-year veteran of the foodservice and hospitality industry, watched TV coverage of the hurricane from his home in Portsmouth, Va., and felt compelled to act. He volunteered with various agencies providing food for the victims. It not only changed the trajectory of his career, it ended up impacting his entire life.

A new career, built on Mercy

Realizing there was “a lack of care put into relief meals,” LeBlanc’s career took on a more altruistic turn when Mercy Chefs, the 501c3 nonprofit organization he started in 2006 with wife, Ann, was born. 

In September, the organization was honored with one of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation’s Restaurant Advance Leadership Awards. Named the program’s 2024 Community Champion, Mercy Chefs was recognized for serving—with the help of 15,000 volunteers—more than 25 million hot, restaurant-quality meals to victims, first responders and volunteers in disaster zones across the nation and worldwide.

Sponsored by American Express, the award paid tribute to Mercy Chefs’ impact on the community, its charitable efforts, and the support it’s provided during natural disasters/crises.

“I knew I had to do something,” he says, “and the only thing I could do was cook. Improving the quality of food I saw being served, I thought, was a better way to feed people, especially in the aftermath of a disaster.”

Responding at a moment’s notice

LeBlanc says Mercy Chefs’ goal is to always stay positioned and prepared to respond at a moment’s notice, to help people who are hurting or experiencing challenging circumstances.

“Our mission is to provide hope,” LeBlanc says. “We want to let people know they haven’t been forgotten; that's the obligation we carry. It's that sharing of a meal—one of the simplest and most powerful things we can do as humans.”

In addition to providing relief to disaster victims, Mercy Chefs, since 2019, has expanded its scope, delivering millions of meals to food insecure communities throughout America, providing them with pantry staples, fresh produce and proteins as well as offering industry job-skill training, single-parent cooking classes, and budget recipe creation. The first permanent community kitchen opened in Portsmouth, Va., with others following in Richmond, Va., Nashville, Tenn., and Dallas.

According to LeBlanc, one of his biggest responsibilities as a community leader is to inspire others, to help them discover their own goals, strengths, and talents. That, he says, is what creates legacy.

“Our goal is to build something that will stand and continue whether we’re here or not,” he says. “That's what I hope to leave—Mercy Chefs working years and decades into the future, sharing meals with people in need.”

Learn more about the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation here