What’s more comforting during a hard time than a warm meal? Lasagna Love is a national nonprofit organization combining kindness with cooking, with local chefs delivering hearty dishes all over Long Island.
Rhiannon Menn founded Lasagna Love in Massachusetts in March 2020, hoping to deliver dishes of comfort and hope around her community. Her idea quickly spread around the country and to Australia and Canada. Today, the organization consists of over 80,000 volunteers and has impacted over 2.3 million people.
“It’s so satisfying to know you’ve helped someone, you’ve made their day easier, and they can sit at their table with their family and eat,” said Melina Hale, Lasagna Love’s Long Island local leader.
Chefs-to-be can sign up on the volunteer portal on Lasagna Love’s website, while meal nominations are found in the request portal. All the cooking is done no-questions-asked, so anyone who needs it can request a meal.
“It’s not just food insecurity, it’s anyone needing an act of kindness in the form of a meal,” Hale said.
Hale lives in Hampton Bays. She began volunteering with Lasagna Love four years ago and has recently taken over as the Bronx local leader.
NYC is dense with meal requests, but fewer volunteers are available; Hale shared, “I started taking eight lasagnas at a time to the Bronx.”
On Long Island, nominations come in most often from Suffolk County. The county needs more volunteers, especially in the frequently requested Mastic-Shirley area.
“It’s just such a feel-good act, it really is. Every single time I make a lasagna, I think about [my friend] introducing me to Lasagna Love — and I think I’m over 370 by now!” Hale said. “If you’re thinking about volunteering, just do it! Give it one try and see how you feel.”
For more information or to sign up for Lasagna Love, visit their website at lasagnalove.org.
