We had food for 3,000 people. Over 4,600 showed up. I'm still amazed at what happened next. See below. --Gary

On Thursday, in partnership with the Panama City area school district, Mercy Chefs helped host a special Back-To-School event. We were told to expect 3,000 people. So we prepared our budget and our resources and our staffing to serve 3,000.

But the people kept coming. And coming. And coming.

And before the evening was over, Mercy Chefs had provided meals for 4,600 people!

But here's where the story gets interesting, because we didn't purchase any additional food! There was simply no time to get any more resources. So we just kept serving meals. For three hours straight, our team had three serving lines going that were always full of people coming for dinner. And the food never ran out.

I can't quite explain it -- how we could have enough food to feed over 50 percent more people than we had prepared for. From a chef's perspective, it quite honestly doesn't make sense. When I calculate on paper ounce-for-ounce how much food we had purchased compared to how much food was needed to serve 4,600 people, it just doesn't add up. Clearly, God added the increase to your generous support of this effort, making it possible for every person who wanted a meal to get fed. We even had a very small amount of food left over -- two pans of meat!

Most importantly, we could see the impact Mercy Chefs is having on this entire community. We had a great response from everyone in attendance. Local officials were overwhelmed once again by the generous support of Mercy Chefs. And to see the faces of children and their families -- many of whom had been blessed by a Mercy Chefs meal in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Michael or during our "Beacon of Hope" efforts this summer -- made the entire day incredibly heartwarming.

Our work here continues. Local officials have asked us to continue our efforts into the fall, in a new capacity to reach more of the children whose lives are still greatly disrupted by the aftermath of the storm. I'll be sharing more details with you on that in the coming days.

For now, THANK YOU for your prayers. They were felt! And thank you so much for your faithful financial partnership with this ministry. 

God bless you!

Gary LeBlanc, Founder
Mercy Chefs

P.S. If you want to support these and other efforts, we could use your help because our work continues! It costs about $2.50 to serve a meal. Perhaps you can sponsor 20 meals ($50), 40 meals ($100), or more. Thank you so much! Go here: