BATON ROUGE — A new community pantry has been installed in Denham Springs through a collaboration between Whole Heart Health and several local partners.

Whitney Andrus, founder and executive director of Whole Heart Health, led the project alongside community partners Vance and Debbie Sutton and the VFW auxiliary post 7017. Whole Heart Health is a nonprofit focused on bridging the gap between nutrition education and nutrition access, providing practical nutrition education and food-access initiatives throughout the community.

“Historic Downtown Denham Springs has been one of our most requested locations, and we are thrilled that the VFW reached out and gave us the opportunity to bring a Whole Heart Pantry to this community,” said Andrus. “We believe access to nourishing food should be paired with the knowledge and confidence to actually use it.”

Whole Heart Pantries are designed differently from traditional community food boxes. Rather than simply providing individual ingredients, the pantries feature complete shelf-stable meals paired with recipes, giving families the tools to recreate the meals at home.

Andrus said this approach was developed after seeing a common challenge with traditional food distribution: individual ingredients can sometimes be left behind because families may not know how to prepare them or may assume there is no way to make them taste good.

“We live in Louisiana. We want flavor and joy in our meals,” said Andrus. “Our goal isn’t just to feed people. It’s dinner with dignity.”

More information about Whole Heart Health, its programs and pantry locations is available at wholeheart.health.