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Diner’s Facebook plea results in donation of 1 ton of rice from Supreme Rice | Supreme Rice

Diner’s Facebook plea results in donation of 1 ton of rice from Supreme Rice

December 21, 2017

A simple plea for assistance on social media resulted in a one ton donation.

The director of St. Francis Diner, Juanita Lewis, noticed that the nonprofit organization that provides healthy meals to the needy people in the community was in desperate need of a staple of many Cajun meals — white rice. So Lewis posted on the St. Francis Diner’s Facebook account the diner was in need of donations of rice.

That post grabbed the attention of Carrie Louviere, who serves as office manager at local accounting firm Broussard Poché LLP. Louviere informed CPA Craig Viator about the diner’s need and a few weeks later, Supreme Rice in Crowley made a donation of 2,000 pounds of rice to St. Francis Diner.

“Carrie saw a post on a Facebook that they were in dire need of rice,” Viator said. “I have a longtime client that is at the rice mill and I just called them. We got to talking about the diner’s needs. I went through how we have done work with them over the years, that we volunteer there once a month and have donated food when we can. They didn’t even blink or hesitate. They signed up to make the donation.”

The decision to donate to the diner was an easy one for the Crowley manufacturer.

“As an organization we are all about giving back to the community that we serve,” said Lon Dore, vice president of sales for Supreme Rice. “We are giving it back to Acadiana. If we are going to do this we want to this with the people that are the closest to us.”

For Lewis, the donation exceed all of her expectations of her original call for help.

“I just placed it on there and never thought this would happen,” said Lewis, who has worked at St. Francis Diner for 17 years. “God said ‘Ask and you shall receive’ but I did not think I would get a ton of rice.”

Supreme Rice delivered the entire pallet of rice on Tuesday morning to the diner and according to Lewis, the rice donation will be used in a variety of ways.

“The great thing about rice is that you can use it all kinds of ways,” Lewis said. “We will use to make jambalaya, rice dressing and rice and gravy. Trust me when I say that it will be used. It means the world to us for them to reach out to St. Francis Diner.

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Diner’s Facebook plea results in donation of 1 ton of rice from Supreme Rice - Supreme Rice