Good news like the birth of a baby or bad (like an illness or death), our instinct is to want to help whose life is changing. Make the days just a little easier for the new parents or the grieving family. The neighborly tradition of cooking a meal is not only a sweet gesture, it often fills a real need. The grieving don’t easily whip up three square meals. Post-partum moms aren’t packing lunches as usual. But sometimes all this well-meaning generosity overwhelms the recipient. What’s a family to do with five tuna casseroles delivered the same day? The solution? Take your magnanimous heart and ride the Meal Train. Husband and father of two Michael Laramee of Burlington, VT created this really simple system to reduce generosity overlap while still encouraging kindness. It’s a free online solution that coordinates the process, adds efficiency to charity, so that friends and family can deliver what their friends need, where and when they most need it.
Meal Train is the smaller, sweeter version of Big Data. It’s little data, and it helps. Anyone can start a Meal Train by sending an email invitation to the recipient’s friends. The Train builds a shared calendar for the willing, who can select a date and time to deliver a meal–with details like preferred drop off time, special instructions, number of people eating, favorite meals, food allergies, etc. And with a Meal Train Plus campaign, friends can also schedule rides to appointments, grocery shopping, lawn mowing, etc.
Sample Meal Train via mealTrain.com
