HEAL Milwaukee cooks up Mardi Gras meal for families and patients at Kathy's House

WAUWATOSA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- One Milwaukee chef is making sure families and patients at Kathy's House near Froedtert Hospital are well fed this Fat Tuesday.

Chef Marvin Jones cooked up a special Mardi Gras themed meal for free for those staying at Kathy's House.

"Doing a chicken gumbo, blackened salmon, a vegetarian dirty rice, bananas foster minus the bourbon," Jones said.

Jones is cooking the meal for all of the patients and families for free. Kathy's House gives them a place to stay while being treated at the hospital.

"What makes this place important is that people are already dealing with life situations, so we thought we could bring a little sunshine by bringing what we do here," Jones said.

Jones is the chef for Healthy Eating Active Living Milwaukee. The program aims to heal at-risk adults through good, healthy food. Patients and guests also started off the meal with a stretch, as the program also promotes exercise.

"Food falls into two categories, it's either medicine or poison so we're using the principal of food as fuel instead of filling yourself. That's the whole idea," Jones said.

This is his second time cooking a meal for the families at Kathy's House. He has plans to come back quarterly.

"Of all the seasonings we used today, the one seasoning we didn't use was salt. Because we believe you can give up salt and not sacrifice taste. Balance that with other herbs and spices and it works," Jones said.

Cindy and David Kate are staying at Kathy's House while David receives treatment.

"Every week a group comes in and either does lunch or dinner and there's always extra food left," David said. "She went back for two desserts so you know it was good!"

They appreciate people like Chef Jones coming in and giving families going through a tough time a good meal.

"He's trying hard to put on weight, so I'm trying to feed him more and get him to eat but I eat right along with him and you know what happens then!" Cindy said.

Seeing the reactions from guests, Chef Jones hopes his cooking can provide a brief moment of healing.

For more information on Kathy's House, CLICK HERE.