Help needed ASAP 🙏

Help needed ASAP 🙏

 

 

Invitation to (imperfect) action ✨

 

Hello and good afternoon, sunshine! Thank you for opening this message– I have a request for you 🙏

 

As you have probably noticed, whether it is affecting you directly or whether indirectly, there is a HUGE need for assistance right now amongst many members of our community. This need is likely to only increase over the next several months.

 

Many of you likely have non-profits and causes that you already contribute to, and that is great. This message is not me telling you to also do “something else,” if that is the case!

 

But, and I know this can be true for me, it can be difficult to figure out how and where to plug in when the scale of the problem is so huge. It can feel impossible, and like any personal effort to help is just embarrassingly miniscule 😢

 

Over the past few months, I have been volunteering for an organization called Lasagna Love, which I have found delightfully simple and rewarding

 

This is an organization where people in need can sign up that they need help with a meal. Others, like me, sign up to be the lasagna-makers. Then, at a frequency of your choosing, you the volunteer are assigned to make and deliver a lasagna to one of the families in need.

 

I actually found out about Lasagna Love when someone posted to a neighborhood Facebook group about the positive experience that they had as a recipient of one of the lasagnas. They were urging other families to sign up for this fantastic service.

 

Admittedly, past versions of me would have thought this was a very dumb idea.

 

“Just one lasagna?” I would have thought bitterly. “What a waste of time! When the whole system needs to change! A bunch of bougie lasagna-makers patting themselves on the back, I bet.” 😱😭🙏

 

Clearly, in my older age, I see it differently now. I see how much of a difference helping one person at a time makes, every single day a New Day! So why not expand into lasagna? Plus, the situation being what it is, we can no longer afford to sit on our hands waiting for the most perfect way to help 😊💕☀️

 

Yesterday I noticed that I had not been matched with a lasagna-recipient lately, like I thought I would have been.

 

Then, I saw an alarming email from our area coordinator last night. She wrote this message to us lasagna “chefs”:

 

“We usually do our matching at the beginning of the week. The “optimizer”, which is the computer program that runs and merges all the requests and volunteers, creating the matching for each week. The matching has not been completed this week because the optimizer is still running! This is due to the fact that Lasagna Love is receiving an overwhelming amount of requests each day, as a result of the SNAP benefits being removed.”

 

“I heard today that Lasagna Love is now receiving 1000 to 1500 requests EACH DAY!!!”

 

 

😱😱😱🙏🙏🙏✨✨✨

 

In short, everyone was encouraged to up their volunteering frequency and/or help find more volunteers 🆘

 

If you have been looking for a way to donate your time and money in a very tangible way to help people in our community, this could be the opportunity for you 💥

 

As an added bonus, you will have the opportunity to learn how to make a decent lasagna (which I did not exactly know how to do previously!) And you will be able to spend a meditative afternoon buying the supplies, cooking the lasagna, and bringing it to your recipient ✨🌀✨

 

This could also be a great activity to do with a friend, loved one, or children 👧🏻

 

Taylor, my rockstar assistant, has already signed up herself, and now we are both lasagna chefs 👩‍🍳💥👩‍🍳💥

 

Like I said above, if you are already volunteering or working on a cause, by all means just keep doing what you are doing 💕

 

But if you have been looking for an opportunity to spread kindness and share resources and would like to give Lasagna Love a try, please sign up now

 

Thanks, New Day crew!! See you tonight for your appointments, and next week, and beyond 💖