Lasagna Love is a national project to feed families, spread kindness and strengthen communities. Lisa Hade recently accepted the position as Regional Leader for the Dayton Area. “After delivering Meals on Wheels for 5 years, I saw first hand how kindness and a good meal can make someone’s day. Lasagna Love enabled me to do all of that but cook the meal myself!” Shortly after taking on the regional leader position, she wanted to do more direct outreach to those in need.
The Huffman Project (THP) was a great candidate. This relatively new non-profit is a truly innovative behavioral health project, combining a clinician and peer support specialist to engage with street homeless individuals, providing peer support and connecting clients with behavioral health services, as well as food and emergency supplies. Founded by Kierstyn Crawford, a clinical mental health and addiction counseling supervisor, and Billy Brokschmidt, a certified peer support specialist and CDCA, the THP team works primarily out of St. Paul’s Church in The Huffman Historic District.
Providing emergency supplies and connecting individuals with behavioral health services, during the meals served at St Paul Church, it made sense to see if the local Lasagna Love chef corps could bring a hot meal to their clients. On Thursday, May 6th, Lisa and Kierstyn organized a test run – having a group of chefs prepare 18 pans of homemade lasagna to be shared with THP clients. Many individuals arrived to enjoy a hot meal that day. In addition to hot lunches, individuals were offered non-perishable food, blankets, clothing, hygiene items, harm reduction supplies (such as Narcan), and connections to community services and resources. THP welcomes community engagement, and relies on support from volunteers and donors to reach those in need. More information can be found on their Facebook page. You can also support by purchasing items from their Amazon Wishlist.
Lasagna Love needs more volunteer chefs to meet the growing need in the community. “Through community outreach, Lasagna Love is catching on and we are receiving many requests from Dayton families who could use some help with providing a hearty, nutritious meal for their families. More volunteer lasagna chefs are needed to keep up so that we can help as many people as quickly as possible. The more chefs we have the more we will also be able to provide meals to community groups like the Huffman Project.” For more information, or to sign up as a volunteer chef, visit https://lasagnalove.org/
