Volunteers at Second Helpings not only give back, but also gain a culinary career
Tim Siehl, 53, is a master at the tilt skillet.
A huge rectangular pan that resembles a miniature space shuttle rather than any cooking tool, the tilt skillet can whip up anywhere from 400 to 600 meals at a time, and months of practice has made Siehl one of the go-to volunteers for operating this piece of machinery at Second Helpings.
“I do a little bit of everything here,” Siehl said. “Because of my background in food services and working in kitchens, they tend to put me on things that are a little more involved. But if they need me to do chopping and dicing, I’ll do chopping and dicing.”
There’s a lot of chopping and dicing going on at Second Helpings, a non-profit organization formed in 1998 to battle hunger in the Greater Indianapolis area. The staff at Second Helpings distributes non-perishable and prepared food donations for hungry children and adults via social service agencies.
“We send out somewhere between 2,300 to 3,000 meals a day,” Siehl said. “I know that when I leave here at the end of a shift, in one form or another, we produced a lot of food to go out to a lot of different people who are hungry and who need the food.”
The organization was launched by chefs Kristen Cordoza, Bob Koch and Jean Paison, who hated witnessing the waste of food in the food service industry, ongoing hunger in their own community and the few job training/career building opportunities available to those impoverished or with low-wage jobs. Second Helpings is designed to solve all of these problems by saving food, feeding the hungry and providing job training in the culinary arts to help those interested build a career out of cooking.
Volunteers Bruce Westphal, 58, and Kathy Westphal, 58, became involved with Second Helpings almost five years ago for various reasons.
“She’s a great cook, and I follow directions,” Bruce joked.
Kathy became concerned about food waste after discovering the alarming amount of food that a local Kroger store threw out.
“I’m an avid recycler, and they used to have some bins at the Kroger at 96th and Meridian,” Kathy said. “So I threw the cans in there, and then I went to throw my garbage in the Kroger dumpster, and I opened the dumpster, and here was all of this food in there. I just thought, ‘Surely someone could recycle that.’”
The pair discovered Second Helpings and knew they wanted to get involved. They volunteer at the organization every Tuesday.
Siehl, who has worked in the food service industry for more than 20 years and currently performs a number of tasks in the Second Helpings kitchen three days a week, also understands the amount of food wasted by businesses and other organizations.
“A lot of the cast-off food in the city from grocery suppliers, restaurants, etc. is not going to waste because this is stuff that might normally get thrown away at other locations,” Siehl said. “We’re able to take that food and turn it around and make sure that it feeds a couple hundred people.”
In fact, Second Helpings rescued more than 130,500 pounds of food in the month of October alone and distributed 53,315 meals. The organization has rescued more than 14,000,000 pounds of food since its inception and delivered more than 5,000,000 meals. Furthermore, over 400 students have graduated from the culinary job training program. Because of their multi-faceted work, the staff refers to the organization as a community kitchen, not a soup kitchen.
According to Kathy, the tasks aren’t always easy.
“It’s always a challenge because you never know what’s going to be in that cooler,” Kathy said.
Bruce admits that the staff and other volunteers help make it fun, and their friendships extend beyond their time spent in the kitchen.
“We’ve met this group of people, the ‘Tuesday crowd,’” Bruce said. “I’m sure every day has its own group, but we’ve become friends over the years. We go out for lunch on occasion.”
Today, the organization partners with more than 60 non-profit agencies to deliver food and about 50 businesses who donate food to help fight hunger.
There are a number of ways to get involved with the organization. According to the Second Helpings Web site, a donation of $25 provides 48 meals for children, adults and seniors. The organization also accepts food donations and is in the most need of meat, eggs, dairy and beans—items that provide protein for children, adults and seniors. Individuals also can volunteer at Second Helpings by chopping vegetables and cooking meals in their Hunger Relief kitchen or by delivering food to agencies.
“The primary things that people need to survive are food and shelter,” Siehl said. “It’s really cool knowing that we’re helping them take care of those essential needs, and we’re doing it for a lot of people.”
