Meal train

A meal train is the process of organizing meal giving by matching the special meal needs and requests of the recipient with the availability and abilities of meal givers.

Occasions

Meal trains are commonly organized after significant life events, including birth, adoption, surgery, illness, death, divorce, new job, or moving to a new community. Caring friends, family, co-workers, congregation members, neighbors, and communities show their excitement or compassion through the organized delivery meals.

Importance

During significant life events, schedules and routines are often disrupted and the cooking of a healthy meal may become very difficult. The organization of a meal train helps ensure that during these challenging times, a nourishing meal is provided to those in need. The meal train also allows for friends, family, co-workers, congregation members, neighbors, and community to show their support for those during significant life events. This sharing strengthens friendships, neighborhoods, and communities.

Process

The meal train is typically organized by a friend of the family (organizer) who has knowledge of the recipient’s meal preferences, allergies, schedule, calendar, and knows who should be included. With this information, the organizer creates a meal sign up calendar of the available days and known meal preferences. Then, s/he contacts friends of the recipient to let them know that a meal train has been created and to ask if they would like to participate in bringing a meal to the friend in need (recipient). The organizer keeps track of the days that are booked and what meals will be given and communicates the information to the meal recipient and other participants. Additional friends and family who would like to participate after the initial invitation contact the coordinator to learn the specifics of the meal train.

Challenges

The following are items that should be considered to ensure success of a meal train.

Date when the recipient would like the meals to start
Date the recipient would like to stop receiving meals
Booked vs. available nights
Time the recipient eats dinner
Food allergies
Dietary restrictions (vegetarian, vegan, allergies, etc.)
Food preferences
Take-out preferences
Meals already delivered
Number of people the meal should feed
How much the giver should bring
How long the giver should stay when dropping off a meal
Is there anything else that is needed (groceries)
Conflicts with the giving parties’ schedules

The success of a meal train is dependent on the organizer’s ability to keep careful track of changes to the meal sign up calendar and to be able to relay this information to both the recipient and friends of the recipient. Recently, the internet has played an important role in facilitating meal train creation as sites now offer shared real-time calendars to ensure information is communicated between parties promptly.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, May 06, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.