I guess this fits best in the general category. I recently learned about this national organization - Lasagna Love. The idea is that it matches volunteer cooks with families experiencing food insecurity issues. It could be due to money, health, work or something else, and I get the sense that it is geared for folks who are experiencing a temporary fall in their ability to care for their families. I.e. not long term homeless or anything. Anyway, I thought you all might be interested in checking them out and maybe signing up. I’ve had 4 families match so far in 3 weeks, and doing this type of volunteering is exactly up my alley as someone who enjoys cooking. I know that at least some parts of the country have some spotty coverage, and not much name recognition either. For instance, after I signed up to cook, I also had to advertise the organization locally before anyone started to sign up! In this case, local news, local facebook groups and nextdoor.com are your friends. I like that I can take a bit of my surplus time, money, and energy, to help someone with less.
Lasagnalove.org
Wow, you really went the extra mile! Wonderful idea.
I wonder how they settled on Lasagna?
Interesting choice.
The first opportunity to be matched after I signed up, I had no matches. When I reached out to the regional contact, she told me there weren’t many requests in the area and perhaps people didn’t know about it. She suggested I advertise it in my own groups, and I took it to heart. No point volunteering to do something and then not letting people know you are there, right?
Interesting question. If I was in need, lasagna would be my last choice! I have one who doesn’t like ricotta or any type of fresh cheese, and another that doesn’t like tomato sauce.
But in terms of why, the whole organization was started by a lady - it’s in the website writeup - who was watching people around her suffering when covid hit, and she didn’t know what she could do. But she wanted to help. So she started making and bringing food. It took off from there but if lasagna was her go-to comfort food, then I get it.
Here are the pros to it that I can see. It feeds a lot of people for the price. It is easy to put together. You can accommodate it nicely to vegetarian diets. There is already the right sized disposable pan for it that you don’t ever need to try to retrieve. The lasagna can be delivered hot, cold, or frozen, depending on the recipients needs. It can be easily portioned. I’d be hard pressed to think of another dish that checked this many boxes. The nice thing though is while lasagna is the default, I’ve seen people ask for, and deliver, variations on the theme. Spaghetti. Baked ziti. Mac and cheese. So there is some flexibility there.
I like the idea but when I was reading the information the part about delivery safety gave me pause. I’ll think about it but in this day and age you just don’t know who you might run into.
I agree. That part made me a little nervous. Fortunately my town is small and relatively safe. They recommend a buddy system as far as delivery - take someone with you in the car in case anything comes up. And the delivery itself is meant to be contactless. You leave the food on their front stoop and then text them that it’s there.
That’s good to know and information I missed.
It’s most certainly a covid precaution, given the origin of the organization. But it’s also a safety measure in general. The typical progression is you sign up for how many matches and how often you want to be matched. The smallest amount is once monthly. You can also rearrange your schedule at any time. They match once weekly. You text your match to make arrangements. If for some reason they don’t respond, you call them and then email them. But assuming you can make contact, you confirm their dietary needs, let them know what day and approx time you can deliver, and then you just do it. Feel free to pm me if you want more details, although as I said, I’ve only had 4 matches so far.
