Saints, Ochsner and Entergy Pack Meals in New Orleans Day of Service
By Stacy James · HuddleUp NFL Sports Desk | Published October 14, 2026
The New Orleans Saints joined Ochsner and Entergy volunteers at Second Harvest Food Bank on Tuesday, October 13, for a day of service that placed football leadership inside one of South Louisiana’s most important hunger relief systems.
Saints owner Gayle Benson and former players Deuce McAllister, Devery Henderson and Garrett Hartley participated as volunteers packed meals for community members, according to the team’s official event record. The Saints did not publish a meal total, and HuddleUp is not estimating one.
The verified outcome is narrower and more useful: a professional football organization, a health system and an energy company brought people and attention to a food bank that distributes assistance through hundreds of local partners. The event offers a practical model of community impact because it connected a visible sports brand to work already organized for scale.
What happened at the Saints Second Harvest day of service
The Saints’ official gallery identifies Benson, McAllister, Henderson and Hartley among the participants. It describes volunteers packing meals at Second Harvest on October 13. The photographs published by the team document the work, but those team images are not reproduced here because HuddleUp did not verify reuse permission.
That distinction matters. Community reporting should honor both the work and the rights of the people who documented it. HuddleUp therefore uses a separately licensed archival photograph from a 2020 Second Harvest distribution in Metairie. It is clearly labeled as illustrative and does not suggest that the photographed people attended Tuesday’s event.
The activity itself fits a broader pattern in the Saints’ public community programming. On its official site, the organization has documented food packing, school visits, health initiatives and volunteer projects across the region. Tuesday’s event was not presented as an isolated ceremony. It was a working volunteer shift built around a local institution’s existing distribution network.
A food bank designed for regional reach
Second Harvest says it supports more than 500 community partners and programs across 23 Louisiana parishes. The organization reports distributing the equivalent of more than 38 million meals a year through food distribution, a community kitchen, nutrition education, public benefits assistance and disaster response.
Those figures provide the scale that an event caption cannot. Packing meals is one visible task within a system that moves food from warehouses and kitchens to pantries, schools, senior programs and other community sites. The food bank’s network reaches from the Mississippi border to the Texas state line, according to its current organizational description.
The organization also explains that volunteer labor is central to those operations. Its corporate volunteer page states, “Volunteers are the backbone of our organization.” It reports more than 64,000 donated service hours in the most recent year described on that page, an amount it equates to more than 30 full time staff positions.
Second Harvest lists sorting and packing food, preparing meals in its community kitchen and helping with special events among its volunteer roles. That context turns Tuesday’s appearance into more than a photo opportunity. The value comes from adding labor to a process with defined jobs, experienced staff and established routes into the community.
Why a football brand can multiply local service
Professional teams cannot solve food insecurity through a single volunteer day. They can, however, lower the distance between a regional problem and the people who may be willing to help. Familiar team figures draw attention. Trusted nonprofit infrastructure gives that attention somewhere useful to go.
The best sports partnerships respect that division of responsibility. The team supplies visibility, volunteers and convening power. The food bank supplies subject expertise, logistics and continuity. Corporate partners can contribute employees and resources. None of those roles replaces the others.
For former players, participation also extends the meaning of a football legacy. McAllister, Henderson and Hartley are remembered for what they did in uniform, but public service allows supporters to see leadership as a continuing obligation rather than a career stage that ends with a final game.
HuddleUp analysis: community leadership needs a system
HuddleUp analysis: Sports organizations often use the language of community, but the most credible programs connect that language to a measurable local system. Tuesday’s Saints event did that by working through Second Harvest instead of trying to create a separate distribution structure for one day.
The approach is repeatable. A team can return. Corporate volunteers can return. Fans who discover the organization through football can sign up for shifts or find assistance. The public value therefore does not depend on the presence of a camera or a celebrity once the event ends.
It also offers a leadership lesson inside football. Strong organizations do not confuse visibility with expertise. They identify who is already doing essential work, bring the resources they can contribute and let the operating partner lead the process. That is collaboration with discipline, not branding placed over charity.
How readers can connect with the work
Readers can learn about food assistance, volunteer opportunities and donation options directly through Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana. The food bank’s official site also provides location and partner information across its service area.
For HuddleUp, the broader takeaway is that football culture is not limited to results and roster moves. It is also the network of relationships a franchise chooses to strengthen when the stadium lights are off. The Saints’ October 13 service day is meaningful because it put recognizable football leadership to work inside a long standing community response.
Sources: New Orleans Saints event gallery, October 13, 2026; Second Harvest overview; Second Harvest corporate volunteer information.
About the author: Stacy James and the HuddleUp NFL Sports Desk report verified league, team and football culture developments using official sources and clearly attributed independent reporting.
Newsroom transparency: This report was prepared with AI assistance from the linked sources. HuddleUp did not conduct an on site interview for this report. Read our Editorial Standards and Transparency page.
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