Clayton Runfalo wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every second Saturday. He makes his breakfast, brews his coffee, then drives to the Ochsner Health Clinic in Gonzales.

Runfalo, a primary care physician, is not clocking in for the weekend. Rather, he spends his day off running a food distribution center.

The clinic-turned-food-distribution center is located at 2400 S. Burnside, Gonzales and begins food distribution from 7 to 10 a.m. every second Saturday (the next date for food distribution is Jan. 11, 2025).

Tell me about how the food distribution center started.

It started off as me and my wife just praying somebody would show up. Now, we typically have anywhere from 15 to 20 volunteers that come help out on a regular basis.

I've always been into community service. I was in the Army years ago and in one of my other roles, I'm a deputy coroner for East Baton Rouge Parish. I'm also the director of community outreach and development for Ascension Parish.

In 2023, I attended the Ascension Parish Chamber of Commerce leadership class. My group, the SOUPer servants, decided to tackle food insecurity in the parish and offline.

We reached out and partnered with the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank to set up what they call a mobile food distribution pantry.

We give out food. We feed the parish. We are an all-in, all-out pantry, meaning that the food bank supplies us with food, our volunteers sort that food, package it up and then distribute it to the residents of the parish.

The food goes to low-income residents of the parish. Residents do need to qualify for it and fill out an application.

What inspired you to do this in Ascension Parish?

Ascension is a very interesting parish. We are one of the one of the wealthiest parishes, but we also have some of the poorest people too. And, with inflation, prices have just gone up and up, and people's incomes have not kept up with it.

There's a lot of food disparity. It's surprising how many people need help, and a lot of them don't know where to go -- they don't know who to ask, they don't know where to turn. It's been eye-opening to see how much need there is.

We're making a very small dent in it, but we're trying.

What can potential visitors/volunteers expect at the distribution center?

It's a mobile pantry. The recipients don't get out of their cars. While most of my volunteers are sorting the produce and the meat and the dairy into individual grocery bags, I have a couple volunteers going down the car line.

They are checking to see if somebody's already on our list of recipients and their application has been approved by United State Department of Agriculture. If they're not on our list, we have a stack of applications. There's no need to preregister, but it helps.

On average, we distribute enough to feed anywhere from 350 to 400 people. That's usually broken down into about 75 to 100 households -- some households are just one person, some are two, some are four.

Each box includes dry goods, some type of dairy product, some type of meat product and often some type of produce as well -- like either onions or carrots. We've had apricots and tomatoes too.

How do you promote wellness?

I try as much as I can to focus on wellness rather than sickness. Every patient that I see, I try to give them a prescription, so to speak, for diet and exercise.

I tell them that part of staying well is a healthy diet, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, smaller portion sizes. I tell everybody to drink lots of water every day, and do some sort of physical activity every day too.

A lot of times people think have to do 30 minutes of strenuous cardiovascular exercise three times a week to be healthy. They often say, "Who's got 30 minutes?"

So, I've modified that myself, and I tell them to give me five minutes every day. It's a small thing, but it's easily accomplished -- even if it's raining.

I also tell people that food is medicine. I got medicines for everything -- somebody has high blood pressure, they have diabetes, they have high cholesterol or something's hurting. If a medicine causes a side effect, I have a medicine for that.

I tell my patients that 95% of what I deal with can be treated with diet and exercise and staying healthy. That's really what your body needs.

But at the food pantry, we're not preaching wellness. We're not teaching people. We're just feeding them. We're giving them food. Our goal is to feed the parish.

Visitors can register for the food distribution center after reviewing the qualifications (including income and economic status) and registering with the food bank at brfoodbank.org.

This story has been edited for length and clarity.