Got a friend with a lot on her plate? Use this simple strategy to give her 3 home-cooked meals a week.
By Ellen Willson Hoover
WHEN MY NEIGHBOR Julie’s young son needed surgery that would put him in a body cast, we were all anxious to help but unsure about what to do. Because she has another child, we knew that mealtimes would be especially hard, and my first instinct was to stop by with a casserole—but I kept envisioning Julie being deluged with lasagnas and overwhelmed with the job of returning dishes to their rightful owners. (Sound familiar?)
So instead of cooking, I started organizing, arranging to have each concerned friend drop off one full meal on a prearranged night over a month and a half, which ultimately provided the family with three lovingly prepared dinners each week. The idea turned out to be the mother of all solutions: Julie was utterly relieved to have a few nights free of cooking, and we were all thrilled to have found a way to provide some meaningful support. Here’s our surprisingly simple game plan, which includes all the steps that worked best, along with a few innovations and tools to get you started. My friends and I will use it again and again!
How to Do It
MAKE THE OFFER
Call the person you want to help and say that you and your friends would like to provide three or four meals per week. Be sure to ask which days would be most beneficial, what her family’s favorite foods are and whether they have dietary restrictions or dishes they just loathe. Julie and I settled on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings for six weeks.
ASSEMBLE THE TEAM
All you need is a good e-mail list. Right after the surgery, my friend sent out a message updating everyone on her son’s condition, so I copied the addresses of those recipients, added others of friends I thought might want to help, and sent a note asking people to reply if they’d like to cook a meal one night for Julie’s family. I included her food preferences and asked the recipients to send me their top two choices of dates and possible meals. I was amazed not only by the number of replies but also by the “viral” component of my e-mail. Friends forwarded to other friends, and I had 18 chefs in no time.
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