Lots of Lasagna Love | Volunteer home cooks deliver lasagnas to community
STURTEVANT — A lasagna waits patiently in the oven.
It’s about 11 a.m. Sunday in Frances Kis’ quaint kitchen in Sturtevant, where the lasagna — which she’s put a few hours of her week into making — is cooking to perfection.
At noon, Kis will wrap it up and deliver it to a family of four in Mount Pleasant to have on Valentine’s Day.
“Just gotta let it broil for a bit longer,” said Kis — who is an avid believer in letting the sauce simmer for a few hours to bring out the flavor in the whole lasagna — as she set the oven.
This is the premise of Lasagna Love, a nationwide movement to deliver homemade lasagnas to members of local communities in order to spread kindness, show support and feed a neighbor.
Volunteer home cooks get matched up with an individual in need and set up a time and day for the lasagna to be delivered by contactless drop-off. Volunteers shoulder the cost to make the lasagna and deliver it, though Kis said she occasionally gets donations from people who want to help the cause.
Lasagna Love began as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, when founder Rhiannon Menn — who runs BeGoodToMama.com, a parenting and lifestyle website — wanted to help families with a small, but significant gesture.
A way to give back
Kis, the regional leader of Lasagna Love in Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties, said she joined because she was looking for a way to give back to the community during the pandemic.
“I love to cook,” Kis said, adding her favorite part about getting together with family was coordinating the meals until the pandemic brought gatherings to a halt. “When I couldn’t do that anymore, I was looking for another way to give.”
Kis joined Lasagna Love in December. Since then, she said, she’s made between 15 and 20 lasagnas, from 2 to 3 lasagnas every week.
There are 24 lasagna chefs — whom Lasagna Love dubs as “Lasagna Mamas and Papas” — in Kis’ region ready to serve a good meal. Consistently, the group has delivered 10 to 12 lasagnas a week, she said.
“It continues to build,” Kis said.
Who can request?
There are no requirements to request a lasagna. Kis said she has heard from people with varying needs.
For example, she said she’s gotten requests from health care workers who are working long hours, moms who are home-schooling kids, people who have lost their jobs or families just coming out of homelessness.
“My very first match was a multigenerational household of grandma and grandpa, mom, children, whose grandson was going through a leukemia treatment,” Kis said.
“There’s the food insecurity piece of it, but a lot of people just need some comfort right now,” she said. “It’s not just because you can’t afford it.
“There are neighbors who want to help. The weeks that I see people without a match, they wish they had a match.”
Jessica Safransky Schacht, chief operating officer at United Way of Racine County, began volunteering with Lasagna Love in December.
She said there have been hard times in her life where someone dropping off a hot meal to her and her family has been “the kindest thing to experience.”
“It not only feeds you — you need to eat — but somebody took that time to make sure that I have this thing that I needed,” Safransky Schacht said.
Families helping each other
Lasagna Love provides a base recipe, but cooks can alter it however they like, or to the requestor’s needs. Kis said she has fun making lasagnas with her family.
“I usually make one for us to eat,” she said. No matter what she does to the lasagna, Kis said, her family “loves it.”
Safransky Schacht said she takes her children, who are 4 and 6 years old, with her on her deliveries.
“They’re always saying, ‘Why are you always bringing food, Mama?’ “ Safransky Schacht said. “And I say, ‘Because when you can, you build a longer table, not a higher fence.’ They see that it’s important to take time and, when you can, your resources to help someone who needs a little boost.”
For more information on how to get involved or request a lasagna, visit Lasagna Love’s website at www.lasagnalove.org.
This article originally ran on journaltimes.com.
