Meal Train Tips and Tricks

I’m at a stage in my life right now where I’m not able to serve too much outside of my home and work commitments. I know that serving requires some form of sacrifice, but there are also limits on all of our time and energy. I am not able to serve in church on Sundays, nor am I able to be a room Mom or party host for my kids classes at school. While I’m working on improving hospitality within my home, I also have my limits there. I could spend a lot of time focusing on what I’m NOT able to do, and whine about these limits- or I can ask myself “well, what can I do?”

One thing that has come to mind these past few years is serving by fulfilling meal train commitments. Now- let me start by saying that this doesn’t always come easily. I always think “well, it can’t be that hard! I’m already making dinner for my family, so I’ll just double it and take it to them, too!”. Except it never actually works this way. What happens instead is that some commitment comes up on the very same day that I signed up to bring a meal. Then, I make the meal in the early afternoon in order to drop it off by 5pm. I usually need to take all my kids with me for the drop-off because Theo doesn’t get home until 5:45. We finally get home around 5:45 and then I need to make my own family dinner. Ha! So, if anyone tells you it is “easy” to take a meal to someone- with all due respect- they are wrong.

Our goal in service, however, should not be ease. It should be, well, service. So even though it’s not technically easy to take a meal, it is something that I can do, and it is something that provides a service to someone within my community- so it is something that I am committed to do on a fairly regular basis.

We have also been the recipient of several amazing meal trains, and I cannot tell you how much of a blessing it always was to have food dropped off right at dinner time during a week when everything is all out of sorts, whether from a new baby or a surgery gone wrong.

While I’m not an expert at it, here are some tips that I have picked up along the way:

• Always, always pack the meal with throwaway containers. Nobody wants to deal with doing dishes and trying to remember who to return the pan to.
• Grab some paper plates and napkins to add to the meal. You brought dinner AND saved them from doing after dinner chores
• Follow dietary guidelines and preferences, and it can be helpful to check the rest of the meal train to make sure that pizza isn’t repeated 8 times in a row.
• At the same time, don’t overthink it. If they don’t like the meal, that happens. It is what it is.
• Pick up a bagged salad, a loaf of bread, and a packaged dessert like Oreos. I love doing this because they can decide if they want to eat it immediately or save it for later. And Oreos can just be closed up and put in the pantry to be enjoyed throughout the week. It also saves me time when knowing that I don’t need to make dessert or a side!
• Explain to your children why you are doing it and that this is a way to serve others. Sometimes they can miss the connection when they are just spending 1 hour + in the car, so explaining this and including them in the process is a great teaching lesson! We also talk about all the times that people brought us food when we needed it!
• Check the address for delivery before you sign up. Since I am usually taking a meal to someone from church, the radius of travel from church can be up to 40 minutes. Imagine my shock when I checked the address and realized that I need to drive over an hour to drop off a meal! Now I check the address and pass on the ones that are more than 30 minutes away.
• Try to double whatever you are making to cover the meal train and your own dinner. That way you don’t have to cook twice.
• Starting a meal train is really easy, too! If you know someone in your community who is going through a yard time, I highly recommend starting up a meal train for them. Sometimes people just need someone else to say they are starting it and everyone else is happy to sign right up. I typically use Take Them a Meal, but Meal Train is another helpful website.

Now, deciding what meal to take- that’s the tricky part! If it’s a gluten free meal, I typically make rice and mini meatloaf or tacos. Casseroles/Mac and cheese are easy to throw together, especially if there are other small children in the family. I’ve also totally skipped a home cooked meal and just delivered pizza, Chick fil a or Chipotle a time or two! What is your favorite meal to take to someone? Do you have any other tips or tricks that you would add to this list?