By Eileen Moon
Life can be complicated. You’re going along just fine when an unforeseen plot twist puts you in the breakdown lane on the turnpike of life.
Maybe it’s a big thing: a lost job, an illness, a divorce.
Maybe it’s a smaller thing: a move to a new neighborhood, a looming deadline at work, an elderly parent who needs your help.
You can handle it. You always do. But you sure could use a little TLC.
Before you fix yourself another Charlie Brown supper of burnt toast and popcorn or add salt to the wound by watching a Hallmark Channel parade of impossible-in-real-life happily-ever-afters, you might want to get in touch with Lasagna Love.
They can’t fix your problems, but they sure can make them a little easier to bear.
The organization was founded in 2020 by Brown University and MIT grad Rhiannon Menn, a mother of three who lives in Hawaii, with the idea of bridging the isolation caused by the pandemic by delivering a little TLC, one person at a time.
Lasagna Love is now an international nonprofit whose 35,000 volunteers make and deliver a homemade lasagna to anyone who asks. Since 2020, volunteers have delivered more than 250,000 meals, impacting more than a million people in the U.S., Great Britain and Australia.
Here in New Jersey, Lasagna Love has more than 2,500 volunteers signed up to bake, with about 1,000 of them active at any given time. Monmouth County has 134 lasagna chefs.
There are no strings attached; no reason required, and no commitments involved.
“Anyone can put in a request through Lasagna Love to be on the receiving end of kindness,” said Lasagna Love regional representative Julianne Jensen. “Requester stories range from caring for sick family members, elderly people who are unable to cook for themselves, and even people who may seem well off outwardly but are on the brink of disaster and need a helping hand. The intent is to remove any stigma or needing to meet requirements when reaching out to ask for help.”
Local Lasagna Love volunteers also make lasagnas for area charitable organizations such as St. Luke’s in Long Branch, which regularly serves a community hot meal.
Often, Jensen said, someone who is on the receiving end of a lasagna later becomes a volunteer.
“I really think it’s great that we can meet people where they’re at,” Jensen said. “We are all so dynamic and can be going through so much more than it seems, and sometimes, a little kindness is all that is needed to make it through.”
Through its website, lasagnalove.org, anyone can request a lasagna for themselves or for someone they would like to receive one, and it will be matched with a volunteer in their area who will make it according to their preferences, whether traditional, vegan or gluten-free.
Interested volunteers can also sign up on the website, and those who want to support the organization with a donation rather than service can also do so on the website.
Those who volunteer as lasagna chefs don’t have to go it alone; the organization provides how-to videos and recipes for beginner lasagna bakers on its website.
Neptune resident Carol White has been volunteering with Lasagna Love for about a year-and-a-half. Now retired, White likes the idea that her efforts can directly help someone. In many charities, she said, “There’s always like this mid-level barrier between you and the people you’re trying to help.” With Lasagna Love, the connection is always one-to-one. While privacy is respected and maintained – deliveries are often made with no in-person contact – the knowledge that you are helping a neighbor in need comes firsthand.
“Sometimes there are people who think that it’s some kind of a scam,” White said. “We’re a reputable organization.”
White, who is of Italian heritage, grew up having lasagna for every major holiday. “Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter – before the turkey, before the ham, there was always lasagna,” she said. She enjoys sharing that heritage with the families she bakes for now. “I make a very traditional lasagna, which comes very naturally to me,” she said.
She has a lot of admiration for the volunteers who make specialized lasagnas for those with specific dietary needs. The lasagna chefs always check with the family that will receive the lasagna to go over any special requests. “Every lasagna is custom-made,” she said.
“The volunteers who do vegan and gluten-free – I think they are such heroes. That can’t be simple to do.”
One of the first families she made lasagna for included a recently widowed woman in her 40s and her two teenage sons. “Lasagna was their father’s favorite meal, and they wanted a lasagna because that’s what their dad would have liked. That really got to me,” White said.
Another request came from a grandmother who was caring for her two autistic nephews.
To learn more about volunteering with Lasagna Love or to request a lasagna for your family or someone you know who could use a little TLC, visit lasagnalove.org or contact the organization’s local leader, Julianne Jensen at lasagnalove.nj.3@lasagnalove.org.
The article originally appeared in the December 22 – 28, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
