HOUSTON, Texas – Hurricane Ida swept through south Louisiana with a fury that nearly leveled entire communities, bringing disaster upon disaster to residents who found themselves in its path.

Flooded homes, power outages, lack of access to food, and much-needed medicine were only a few of the problems faced by hundreds of locals.

But Ida's march through the Gulf Coast state also paved the way for first responders and volunteers from nearby states.

Eager to provide assistance, some tended to the needs of storm victims directly while others provided fellow volunteers and first responders with the aid they needed to continue in their storm recovery efforts.

One company that rendered assistance was Cotton Holdings, a Houston-based disaster recovery company, that partnered with Louisiana-based Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers to provide 6,000 meals to first responders and relief workers across the Louisiana coastline on Tuesday, September 14 and Wednesday, September 15, 2021.

“Our hearts go out to our neighbors in Louisiana throughout this rebuilding process,” said Pete Bell, Co-Founder and CEO of Cotton Holdings, Inc. “While our teams work to restore businesses and communities, we wanted to partner with a Louisiana-based restaurant to give back and thank those first responders for their around-the-clock hard work. Cotton is grateful to our friends at Raising Cane’s for joining us in this uplifting initiative.”

Cotton Holdings and Raising Cane’s will deploy the co-branded vehicles on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to deliver Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers boxes to the National Guard and emergency centers, food banks and shelters, hospitals and medical centers, police stations, local fire departments, and churches, among others.

Delivery locations will include some of Louisiana’s hardest-hit communities in Metairie, New Orleans, Houma, Slidell, LaPlace, and Hammond.

“Louisiana is our home and headquarters so it is devastating to see the destruction that Hurricane Ida brought to our communities. The need in our state is great so we’ve partnered with Cotton to distribute hot meals to these communities. Cotton has been helping Louisiana since Katrina, rebuilding our communities following large catastrophes, and we are happy to partner with them to help our resilient state recover,” said Todd Graves, Founder and CEO of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers.

As both companies celebrate their 25-year milestone anniversaries this year, Cotton Holdings and Raising Cane’s are aligned in continuing their charitable support for the communities at large.

Cotton Holdings currently has over 2,100 personnel deployed to assist with recovery efforts at hundreds of Hurricane Ida projects in Louisiana, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York.

In addition to donating meals to first responders with Raising Cane’s Cotton has also been actively working in the region on roof tarping, roof repairs, water extraction, drying, dehumidification, demolition, microbial remediation, fuel supply, generators, lodging and camps, and food service.

Since Hurricane Ida’s landfall, Cotton Holdings has provided hundreds of businesses and properties across the country with damage restoration and support services.