Greetings! My name is Theresa Borel, and I am the chef and owner of Chef Borel’s Kitchen in the northwest corner of both Pike and Washington Townships inside the city limits of Indianapolis, Indiana. Chef Borel’s kitchen prepares primarily Cajun and Creole-style dishes in addition to all types of traditional meat, potato, and green vegetable meals. 

Shortly after I opened the kitchen, I received calls about possible meal assistance and have been asked regularly if my business had any type of program to help feed the seniors and less fortunate in the community. My previous experience as a chef at two different senior facilities gave me a good look at what was needed to feed our senior population of residents. A quick check found over 75 facilities that cater to this senior population. Although most that stay in facilities have regular meals, we found seniors that had access to housing and were suffering from not receiving regular healthy meals but instead were living on salty snacks and sugary sodas.

It has always been my desire to help this hidden population in our community. In an effort to help solve this meal scarcity problem, I formed a not-for-profit that co-exists out of my kitchen space named Chef Borel’s Meals. It is a registered 501(c)3 that gives me the opportunity to investigate and apply for funding to build the organization into my dream project of feeding people not just on holidays, but with the ultimate goal of providing at least two meals a day, Monday through Friday to start with, and then possibly grow it into a meal program every day. There are presently subsidized meal programs that exist, and we have been approved as a FSSA VA provider to accept referrals and food vouchers for the targeted population.

Last Easter, Chef Borel’s Meals fixed hot meals and passed out 300 meals to individuals who had been referred to as needing a little help at Easter. This past Thanksgiving, with the help of my family and friends, 500 turkey dinners complete with dressing, corn bread and a fresh bean salad were passed out. With Easter 2024 quickly approaching, we again hope to prepare and pass out at least 500 meals to not only seniors but to those community members in need of a hot meal. Chef Borel’s Meals enjoys the type of food programs that provide a healthy, hot, nutritionally complete meal.

Paying It Forward: Shortly after the Thanksgiving Day food give-away, many of the Kitchen's regular customers stopped by to let us know they saw the segment on the evening news about the give-away. Many of my regular customers were sorry they didn’t know about it in advance, as they would have loved to contribute financially to the event or come to donate their time. Since the giveaway had passed, I was asked to create a food board so people could continue to be fed. The customers purchased meals, and I created pull tickets that a person could tear off and bring to the serving window, and they would get that meal for free. That small act of kindness went so well that those customers still stop by regularly to purchase more tickets, so that people in need can continue to be fed.

The information above gives you an idea of what we are about. As much as we’d like to just do this ourselves, funding is required to move forward and expand these necessary community food programs. Please consider a tax-deductible donation to help us in this worthwhile endeavor. The Not-For-Profit accepts both Zelle and CashApp, or you can mail a check to the address below. Type in ChefBorelsMeals in the search bar of the app, and “Chef Borel’s Meals” will pop up.  

Thank you in advance for any consideration given.

Theresa Borel, 

Chef Borel’s Meals

6950 Michigan Road.

Indianapolis, IN 46268

(317) 492-9448

[email protected]

Tax ID: 92-3436866