CHICAGO (CBS) — You might wonder what pasta has to do with a pandemic, what tough times have to do with lasagna. One organization is trying to help people through recent hardships one dinner at a time.
Morning Insider Tim McNicholas introduces us to their star chef in Streamwood.
By now, you know there are layers to a pandemic. Layers of despair and hope. Moments of adversity, fear, and love.
As the world grappled with the first layers in 2020, Meg Grant started looking for ways to help.
“You see everyone around you suffering, and you think there’s got to be something I could do,” she said.
She heard about a group called Lasagna Love—a grassroots network of volunteers across the country, who responded to the pandemic with lasagna.
Grant and others cook the meals, and then deliver them to people in need.
“A lot of it is kids who are sick; or parents who are sick; or people who’ve gotten COVID, and are long-haulers, and they’re just having trouble getting past it,” she said.
The group has now served more than 100,000, with their 20,000 volunteers across the country.
A report this week from the Associated Press found food insecurity in the U.S. dropped over the past six months, but the need remains far above pre-pandemic levels, even as we navigate another layer.
“Now it’s different. Now it’s sometimes it’s stress-related; sometimes it’s parents who are overwhelmed with kids back in school,” Grant said. “Sometimes you’ll just have a mom who is close to a meltdown, and, ‘Thank you for this lasagna, because this is one less thing I had to worry about today.’”
Grant had only cooked a few lasagnas in her life before the pandemic. She’s now made over 100, each one topped with a layer of love.
Lasagna Love has 90 volunteers in the northwest suburbs alone, and they’re looking for more.
They’re also looking for people to serve. You can check them out at lasagnalove.org.