BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A food pantry in New Orleans has received nearly 2,500 pounds of shrimp to help families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Second Harvest Food Bank is the recipient of the donation, announced Friday by Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. The donation, which will cover a few pounds each for families, was given by Ronnie Anderson and David and Kim Chauvin, owners of Bluewater Shrimp Company, based in Dulac, Louisiana.
“I’ve always told people outside Louisiana that when they are here, we will treat them like family. This donation is an example of how we in Louisiana treat each other like family with leaders in the Louisiana shrimp industry stepping up to help in this time of need,” Nungesser said.
Second Harvest supports more than 700 community partners and programs across 23 parishes, distributing more than 32 million meals to more than 210,000 people annually, according to its website.
Nungesser said he will encourage state government to also purchase all excess inventories of Louisiana shrimp to send to the Second Harvest Food Bank. That move, he said, follows his earlier request to Louisiana’s congressional delegation to include Louisiana Gulf Coast seafood products on a list of approved purchases for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Doing that, he said, will help the state’s seafood industry which produces $2.4 billion in product annually. One in every 70 jobs in the state is related to the seafood industry, he said.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.