Have you ever wondered what happens to perfectly good food after a grocery store or restaurant doesn't need it anymore?

Every year, millions of pounds of perfectly edible food end up going to waste.

But in Indianapolis, one nonprofit is changing that.

Well, we started Second Helpings 28 years ago to do three things.

Primarily.

One was rescue food One was rescue food that was being thrown out disposed of.

That was perfectly good.

The second was take that food that, is perfectly good food that, is perfectly good food and turn it into nutritious meal for our neighbors here in central Indiana.

And then thirdly, to create jobs for culinary, for the culinary industry through our culinary job training program.

So those three programs are how we started 28 years ago.

And we're still going strong today.

At Second Helpings, we came to learn about food rescue and accidentally showed up on Crazy Hat Day.

A fun reminder that making a difference doesn't always have to look so serious.

Behind the colorful hats is a mission with a simple goal rescuing perfectly good food before it goes to waste.

But what exactly is rescued food?

So when people hear the word rescued food, it's perfectly good food.

Nothing wrong with it at all.

In fact, some of the produce that we get in is as good as the days that I was in a kitchen as a chef.

Getting it right off a produce truck.

The retailers, the food service distributors have decided they can't sell it.

And but it's perfectly good.

So we they offer it to us, which we will gladly take.

Our fiscal year just wrapped up on June 30th, and we rescued 5 million pounds of food last year.

pounds of food last year.

In my tenure, we have just gradually increased every year, so that 5 million was a record.

And I would assume that we will surpass that in this current year.

So what happens after the food is rescued?

The next step is making sure every donation is safe to prepare and serve.

This is where the drivers This is where the drivers will come through that door and they'll deliver whoever's back here.

All the meat, All the meat, produce, dairy, bread.

Just a little bit of everything that they pick up from the other, locations that they rescue.

And then they sort through to make sure one that its good, its time temperature sensitive and safe.

And then, they put it in this cooler, which we call Fiona.

Like This got delivered right at lunch.

Once every item is inspected, the rescued food begins its second life.

So how does the kitchen come up with new recipes for ingredients that change everyday?

It basically just falls down It basically just falls down into what we have available that day, well come in around 7:30 in the morning, see what we have available on our shelves and in our blast chiller.

And then we just kind of create from there.

Today we are making about 120 pans to send out to our agencies.

So we have a carbonara with bacon being made today.

We have a stir fry being made as well.

And then we have some prep work going on.

We're cooking off some rice, we're cooking off some raw meat, and then we're also cooking off pasta today.

Because every food rescue is different, the kitchen has to stay flexible The menu changes every day based on what's available, turning a different supply of ingredients into nutritious meals.

It definitely takes creativity.

Also innovation.

And then the main thing is it takes volunteers, it takes the community, it takes the public to help us make these meals, because without them, we would not be able to do half of what we're doing now.

Preparing thousands of meals each week takes more than a kitchen.

Over the past 12 months, Second Helpings has prepared nearly 1.4 million meals, averaging around 5,000 meals every day.

Since their start, they have served over 22 million meals across central Indiana.

Reaching that scale takes a community.

Every month, volunteers contribute nearly 3,600 hours.

With dozens of people stepping into the kitchen each day to chop, cook, package and prepare meals.

Their support makes it possible to rescue more food, serve more people, and keep the operation running.

We joined Maggie as she demonstrated the packing process to volunteers.

So I'm going to have you scoop families, which are 2 pounds apiece.

Stir it.

Make sure we get all the tasty goodness all together.

Careful, we're not in a rush.

After it's done, close it up.

Handling instructions in the center.

So flavor, instructions, tell me what you think.

Bam!

While some volunteers are here for the first time, others have made Second Helpings a part of their routine for years.

My name is Nora Garrett.

I've been here since 2011, and I volunteer every Wednesday morning.

Second helpings is different and special, and they make you feel so needed and so appreciated.

I just know that every year there are more and more agencies that need Second Helpings food, and I encourage everyone to volunteer.

So once all the food has been cooked and packed, where does it go?

For many of our partners, they don't exist just to serve food to the community food to the community like they have some other mission that they're doing.

So what it means to receive second helpings meals, is it just frees up their resources that they're using to purchase food for the people that come there to put back into their programing and what they're really there to do.

Some of them receive meals every day of the week, some of them receive meals certain days of the week and then redistributed items on other days to help supplement the days.

Maybe when we're not providing the food and again, trying to connect them with what's going to be most beneficial to the community that they're serving.

Every meal has a destination.

Second Helpings supports over 200 local nonprofits and service agencies across central Indiana, some of which include afterschool programs, churches, homeless shelters, and other community organizations.

These meals allow their partners to focus on their mission while ensuring the people they serve have access to nutritious food.

But for the people behind Second Helpings, the mission has always been about something much bigger than food.

It haunted me that there were children in Indianapolis, in central Indiana that were going hungry.

And that was my driving force getting kids fed.

If you can imagine being a child in fourth grade, fifth grade, and not looking forward to summer vacation because you didn't know if you were going to eat or not, because the meals that they had were in a school, in a classroom, at lunch, that I can't fathom that.

Behind every rescued ingredient is a story.

A driver who picked it up.

A volunteer who prepared it.

A partner who served it.

And someone who no longer had to wonder where their next meal would come from.

Making sure that kids get nutritious meals on a day to day basis still, is a priority for me, that there's not much they can do to control it.

But we can help.

And we do every single day.