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June 29, 2024 30 mins
Lasagna Love is dedicated to fostering community connections through the simple act of delivering homemade meals. Founded during the pandemic, Lasagna Love addresses food insecurity and offers a comforting gesture during challenging times. The organization also aims to eliminate the stigma associated with asking for help, ensuring that anyone can receive support without judgment. Recently Melanie Johnson, Regional Director for Tennessee joined John Clark for this episode of Tennessee Matters. 
Website: https://lasagnalove.org
FB & IG: @WeAreLasagnaLove
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's Tennessee Matters on the Tennessee RadioNetwork. Welcome to Tennessee Matters. I'm
John Clark on the Tennessee Radio Network. Lasagna Love It's a global nonprofit and
grassroots movement that aims to positively impactcommunities by connecting Lasagna's and people. Melanie

(00:22):
Johnson is the regional director for Tennessee. She joins me today, how did
you get involved with Lasagna Love?So? I was, It was not
one of the very first volunteers.We started in the early days of the
pandemic. Oh, and we were. We were founded by accident. So
our founding, uh founding, Idon't know, it's not founding. Father

(00:47):
found mother Okay then was a momliving in San Diego at the time when
the pandemic first set in Okay,and she was really fighting feelings of helplessness.
Right, and I think as manyof us were in those first few
days. What can I do?Right, I don't work in healthcare,
I'm not a frontline person. Whatcan I do to support my community?

(01:08):
So she posted in her community Facebookpage and just asked if anyone could use
a meal to orch no questions,asked to support them, and so Not
only did she people who responded toher I could use a compliments, she

(01:29):
also had other people who wanted tohelp cook the meals that said, hey,
if you get more requests than youcan handle, let me know I
would be interested as well. Sothat was four years ago, and over
four years ago now and over fivehundred thousand lasagnyears ago. Wow, it's

(01:49):
amazing. We just reached We justreached a really exciting milestone. A couple
of weeks back. We fed twomillion people in four years, which is
a tremendous reach for a nonprofit.So me personally, how did I get
involved? I had been volunteering hasalways been very important to me, really

(02:14):
fills my cup, and so Ihad been volunteering with Cat Rescue and I
had done that for like fifteen seventeenyears. And then as the pandemic spun
up, that nonprofit actually was closingdown. The directors wanted to retire,
and I was like, gosh,you know, I've been volunteering for so

(02:36):
long. I kind of don't knowwhat to do with myself. And so
I looked around. I couldn't decideif I want to continue with the animal
rescue, if I want to dosomething else, and I stumbled upon Lasagna
Love on Facebook, and cooking isdefinitely my love language, and so I
thought, well, I'll give thisa try. And so that was the

(02:59):
September of twenty twenty one. Sothe program was about a year and a
half ish old at that point,and since then I have cooked a four
I think it's close to two hundredand fifty families in that time. So
yeah, I was really excited tofind something else to kind of channel that

(03:23):
energy, and I just I reallylove our mission. The thing that makes
us different right from there are manynonprofits that are focused on food insecurity,
and certainly that is a big partof what we do as well. But
another really big part of our missionis to remove the stigma from asking for

(03:46):
help. Because what we saw withthe pandemic kind of turning our whole world
on its head right for such along time, is that many people who
were requesting help from us had neverever had to ask for help before,
right, And so it was avery humbling experience to realize that literally someone

(04:08):
in your neighborhood, right, somebodywho lives just a few houses down from
you, could be struggling to feedtheir family, and also we empower anyone
for any reason to request meals.So need a lot of times as financial,
but not always right. So weget a lot of requests from people

(04:29):
who are going through medical situations likecancer treatment, or new moms who are
just feeling very overwhelmed when they gethome from the hospital, trying to figure
out how to navigate this new liferight. Also, you know teachers who
are just exhausted, people that workin the healthcare profession. These past few

(04:51):
years have been especially tough on them, So we really want to Our big
focus is spreading kindness right through througha simple act of bringing someone a meal,
not asking a lot of questions.If you've been to our website and
you've seen our request form, it'sreally just enough information that we ask.

(05:12):
We don't ask anybody what their incomeis or anything about their financial situation.
We just want to know how manypeople do we need to feed, do
you have any food allergies? Andwhere are you located so that we can
match you with a volunteer in yourarea. So I really love that we're
just so open and welcoming to anyonewho could use that meal for any reason

(05:34):
at all. This is fantastic.Lasanigna is one of my personal favorite things
to make. And I love this. I love the fact that you do
this. You get lasaigna and youmake lasagna. And was were you could
you make lasangna before I did?I did? So it was always for
me something that I would bring,uh, you know, to a special

(06:00):
family occasion. Right. I thinkyou know many of us associate lasagna with
that comfort kind of a family sittingaround a table, right, and in
a very comforting kind of way.It's it's kind of like a hug in
a meal, right, and soit I always have enjoyed making it.

(06:21):
But we have many volunteers and Ilove this as well. People who say
I love what you do. I'venever made a lasagna in my life,
but they're willing to learn. Right. We have some starter recipes. There's
no like you know, this isthe recipe you must use, Okay,
So it allows people to be creative. Right. If you want to use
your great grandmothers from Italy's lasign yourrecipe, cool right. If you want

(06:45):
to use jarred sauce, awesome.If you want to make your sauce from
scratch, cool right. So there'sa lot of creativity that our volunteers bring.
And that's really fun as well.When now somebody comes in and they
fill out on online and you goonline and fill it out, right,
you just fill out what Okay,Volunteering with us is super flexible. Okay.

(07:10):
If like you're you're okay in yourMurphy's burau, right, can see
okay, where somebody's located on theother side of the state. How do
you do that? How do youget the people together with that with them?
How do you get the people youknow lined up? Yeah, yeah,
that's a great question. Through thepower of technology, right, Okay,
So on our web site, wehave a really simple form that someone

(07:31):
can fill out to request a meal, and we have another really simple form
and that someone can sign up tovolunteer with us, right, And so
volunteering with us is super flexible.You literally set all of the parameters and
the rules for your volunteer engagement.So for example, you can sign up
to cook just one time you wantto give it a try, or maybe

(07:53):
your schedule's really busy and you wantto do it just once. That's fantastic,
You welcome you. We have alot of people who sign up to
do it once a month. Ok, we have a few people who sign
up to do it every couple ofweeks. Right, so you manage your
schedule. You can also take timeoff. Right, we know it's summer
season. People are going on vacations, hopefully spending a little extra time with

(08:13):
family. And through a volunteer portal, you have a way to manage your
schedule that's really simple. So youlet us know when you want to be
available. You also let us knowwhat kinds of lasagnias you want to cook.
Do you want to do a traditionallasagna? Are you good with vegetarian?
Can you cook gluten free, vegan, et cetera. Right, people

(08:35):
have all sorts of dietary needs outthere, so our volunteers let us know.
Then. The way it works eachweek, we have this really cool
piece of technology that was developed bystudents at MIT as a community service project,
and it's called the Optimizer, andit crunches all of the data.

(08:58):
So every Monday morning looks at allof our volunteers that are available on the
schedule that week, all of ourrequests that are in, and it compares
all the stuff, right, everybody'sdietary needs, how far those volunteers can
drive. That's another parameter that thevolunteer sets for themselves. Right. So
typically people who live in medium tolarge size cities, they can be matched,

(09:22):
you know, five or ten milesfrom home. For those who live
in rural areas, they might needto increase their distance more like twenty to
twenty five miles to be matched witha request. So that does vary quite
a bit. But you tell uswhat works for you, Okay. So
what that optimizer does is it looksat all that data and it then matches
requests to volunteers. And we arenot just in the state of Tennessee.

(09:48):
In Tennessee we have about two hundredvolunteers that are active right now, but
we are all across the US,Canada, Australia, Puerto Rica, go
are getting ready to expand into theUK. This has become a global movement.
This is great. So be thinkingabout right for you and your listeners.

(10:13):
Right, who do you know inyour life? We all know these
people, right, Cooking is theirlove language. Right, So chances are
no matter where they live, wecan probably match them with a requester.
Wow. So in Tennessee, I'llshare a little bit of stats for what
we've accomplished in the state of Tennessee. Yeah, so of those two million

(10:37):
people that we've fed as a globalorganization, a little over fifty four thousand
of those have been right here inthe state of Tennessee. So that's people
touched. And then we've had justshy of thirteen thousand mules delivered by around
twelve hundred chefs over the course ofthe past four years. So right now

(11:00):
we have about two hundred active volunteers, but we also have thirteen hundred plus
families on our wait list, sothe need is great. And like I
said earlier, whether someone can signup to cook for one family one time.
We also have church groups, ladiesgroups, gardening clubs even who get

(11:24):
involved and they say, we wantto do a one time event and we
want to feed five families or tenfamilies, right, so it's very customizable.
We also have a program for GirlScout Troops. If anybody is looking
for a community service project for theirGirl Scout Troops, we have a whole
part of our web page that givesyou all of the resources you need to

(11:48):
get involved in that way. Weeven have a Girl Scout patch that's available
that the Girl Scouts can earn aspart of voluntary with Losagula. Really,
Oh my gosh, this is great. What do you spend a lot of
time every week making lasagne yourself?You know? I do? So I
wear many hats with the organization.I am the regional director for the State

(12:11):
of Tennessee, which means my roleis to spread Losagnel Love across the whole
state and support our local leaders thatare focused in each of our areas.
And we have nine districts across thestate of Tennessee with leaders who support each
of those, so I'm supporting them. I also do a little bit of
training with the organization. I'm justall in with Losagnel Love. Now.

(12:33):
I do work full time. Yeah, I love that. I still love
this. I love this. Yeah, I do work full time. But
this is my this is my afterworkpassion, right. It really fills my
cup. It is so humbling,And you know, even though I do
a lot in the leadership role,it's very important to me also that I

(12:54):
continue to cook regularly because it's justvery humbling, right when you pull up
up and sometimes our requesters don't shareanything about their situation, and that's perfectly
fine and sometimes they do choose toshare with you, right, they'll,
they'll there's a comment section on therequest where they can choose to share if
they would like, about their personalsituations. So I've delivered to families.

(13:18):
I think for me personally, themost heartbreaking situations are families that are living
in motels a long term, right, So you know, two parents,
two to three kids sharing a motelroom. And unfortunately, this is not
a temporary situation for many of thesefamilies. I mean, I'll deliver to

(13:39):
them once and then I delivered tothat same family again in six months and
they're still in that location. Soyeah, they've usually been eating you know,
ramen, noodles and fast food.So for them to have a homemade
meal delivered hot and fresh, right, and always bring you know, paper
plates and napkins, a spatula,things they just wouldn't have in a motel

(14:03):
room necessarily, right, And they'realways so thankful for that hot, homemade
meal. So you do that yourselftoo, you go to these places and
deliver. How about the safety involvedin that or are you safe? I'm
sure people wonder what about when theydo this? What about my safety?
What do I do? Do youcan you us I I can speak a

(14:24):
bit to that, okay. Sowhat we recommend always is before you deliver
too, and we do deliver.All of our meals are delivered because a
lot of our requesters do have transportationbarriers, right, And so what we
recommend is that you look up GoogleMaps street view ahead of time. If
it's an area of town that you'reunfamiliar with. It's a great thing to

(14:48):
do to involve a family member,right. So for me, I deliver
it with my partner and I alwaysmake him take me out to dinner afterwards.
Right, I've cooked for other peopleand now I want to not lagna,
Yeah exactly, So you know,take a friend, a family member,
right, somebody with you. Wedo recommend always delivering during daylight hours.

(15:13):
And then you know, sometimes certainsituations, right, motels maybe with
you know, they sometimes can bein parts of town that are you know,
more prone to crime and things likethat, So we never recommend delivering
to the room. We always askthe person to meet us at the front
desk. Always delivered during daylight hours. And then occasionally we do have requests

(15:35):
from people who are homeless, right, and so in those situations we want
to be very respectful of their space. We don't want to go you know,
where other people may be and maynot know the situation. So in
that case, we meet them ina public place, be that a library
of fire station, somewhere where youcan both get to that feels safe for

(15:58):
everyone. Okay, yeah, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense.
What about your your supplies? Youyou get your you get your own
supplies or can people if people say, you know, I can't do it
or I can't cook, but Ican give some money for supplies? What
about that? Yeah, there's aton of ways to get involved with Lasagna
Love that don't involve making lasagnaskay,so our volunteers do provide all of their

(16:25):
own supplies. Right, So ifwe have sponsorship programs where you can actually
sponsor a chef in your community,you donate a monthly amount that chef agrees
to make x number of lasagnas andthey actually send you a picture. You
get pictures of lasagnas that you sponsored, which is pretty cool. So you
can also donate ingredients, like ifanybody has a business where they want to

(16:52):
host what we call a Lazagnan ingredientdrive or a lid. Right, we
can do sauce, noodles, anyof those non perishable items. If you
want to do a grocery store giftcard to support a chef in your community,
that's definitely something. You can contactus through our website to do that.
You can reach out to me.I'm under on our website as well,

(17:15):
which is Luvagnalove dot org. Youcan find my email address there.
You get contact with me directly ifyou want to do something local, and
then I will mention this. Wehave a really exciting thing coming up next
month and that is called National LasagniaDay. So we didn't invent it,
but we have claimed it. Rightyou should? Why not? Right?

(17:40):
Yeah? It is July twenty ninth, and we will have a whole campaign
around this. So for us,we have a ten day window around July
twenty ninth. This year it's Julytwenty sixth through August fourth, and we
set some really big goals every yearfor National Lasagnia Day. So this year

(18:00):
we want to feed ten thousand familiesduring National lasaigna Day week WTE that ten
day period, so that's one thousanddeliveries a day during that ten day period.
We want to raise one hundred thousanddollars. We thankfully have some corporate
sponsors that are going to help usget there. But you know, every

(18:21):
little bit counts, So if somebodycan donate five dollars or fifty dollars or
five hundred dollars, it doesn't matter. It's all going to go back to
the good cause. And I willtell you Wazagna Love is run amazingly well,
and we have two paid employees.Everyone else is a volunteer, so
it is so energizing and humbling towork with so many talented people, most

(18:48):
of which are volunteers just like me. So we are extremely lean. We
do have a lot of financial transparencyinformation on our website. If anybody wants
to read our annual report and seehow lean we are run, I can
assure you that any donation is goingto go directly to feeding families. So
we have extremely low overhead costs withLasagna Love. So we've got to feed

(19:14):
one hundred thousand or we're going todeliver ten thousand Lasagnas one hundred thousand dollars.
We are also looking for one hundrednew monthly sponsors. So we call
this club Racotta and it can beas simple as five dollars a month recurring
donation, right, it doesn't haveto be this huge donation, and then
we want to recruit one thousand newvolunteers all in this ten day period.

(19:40):
So really exciting news for the Nashvillearea. Nashville has actually been selected as
one of three cities by RAGU,one of our corporate sponsors, and RAGU
is going to provide us enough suppliesand ingredients to cook one hundred lasagnas and
a feed one hundred Nashville area families, which is huge, huge. We

(20:07):
are looking I'm not sure when thiswill air, but we do need a
commercial kitchen space, right. Weare looking for July twenty seventh or July
twenty eighth, which is a SaturdaySunday, either one of those days.
And it doesn't have to be acertified commercial kitchen, right. It could
be a large church kitchen, acommunity center, a community college. So

(20:32):
if anybody has connections to a placein the Nashville area where we could gather
about fifteen to twenty volunteers for probablyfour to six hours and make a hundred
lasagnas, okay, please reach outbecause we need to identify that space pretty
quickly. Okay, you need that. We're going to help you get that.

(20:52):
We want to help you get that. That's for sure. We'll put
it out there and get it.Now. What what what? What's your
favorite type of designa? What areyour favorite things to cook? Your favorite
designa to cook? I'm curious,so I will tell you. I started
off with the Pioneer Woman lasagna recipe, which is a fantastic beginner lasagna recipe,

(21:18):
and really really enjoy that one.But one of the neat things about
being with lasagna love is that youlearn all kinds of tips and tricks to
do it easier, right, becauselasagna can be pretty labor intensive. So
one of the best tips that Ihave learned is you don't actually have to
boil the noodles, and you don'tneed to buy the expensive oven ready noodles

(21:41):
either. You can just use regularnoodles, add about a half a cup
extra of water or beef broth toyour sauce, and then cover that lasagna
and foil. It's gonna steam thosenoodles and cook them with the rest of
the dish. So that's been ahuge time saying, right, because then

(22:02):
you don't have that whole pot withthe noodles, and that's just kind of
awful, right. They always wantto break and it's complicated, so I
always used to use I started myfirst recipe used cottage cheese, and then
I started using ricotta. But inthe past couple of months, I have
discovered the beschamel sauce, which soundsreally complicated, right because it's French,

(22:27):
But really it's it's a basic group, right. It's it's equal parts of
flour and butter. You cook thatoff and then you add milk, right,
and you stir. So it's alittle labor intensive and that you kind
of have to babysit it, butoh my goodness, it is so luscious

(22:47):
and I'm converted. It's also agreat cost favor because it's very low cost
ingredients. And so far the feedbackon those lasagnas has been fantastic. Have
to try that, teams. Iknow I'm going to try that next time
I make lasagna. This is great. I love this. You guys really

(23:08):
are doing a great job. Whatwhat do what? What are some of
the other people say about lazagna?The kind of designas around Tennessee? What
do they make? What do theyput in them anything unusual. Sometimes people
like to get really creative, right, and they might do like a a
taco lazagya right, or they're lasagna. We also get the question a lot

(23:30):
do I have to make lasagna?Right? That's sort of the what people
hear about us something right that comesup and as long as you offer lasagna
as one of your options, right. So when you're working with that match,
and here's kind of how it worksas well. This might be helpful
for people to know. So onMondays, when those matches get recommended,

(23:52):
you're going to get an email.If you're on the schedule that week,
it's going to say, hey,you've been matched with a local family.
It's time to reach out and spreadsome kindness. So you then go into
a volunteer portal and you see thecontact information for that family. It's really
important to know because a lot ofpeople ask this question. Our requesters don't
see your information, right, Sothere's no worry about your privacy or anything

(24:17):
like that, and you know justenough about them to communicate with them and
arrange delivery. So when you sendthat text to them, if you want
to offer something that's different from lasagna, you can say A lot of people
will do this based on what they'recooking for their own house that week.
Right, maybe they're doing an unchiladacast role, or some kind of other

(24:38):
you know, heardy dish. Anykind of hearty dish is substitutable. Right.
You can say, I make agreat lasagna, or this week,
I'm also offering a whatever loaded macaroniand cheese with you know, right,
the possibilities are endless, right,and then the person gets to choose,
Like, some people really want alasagna. Some people are like, oh

(25:00):
wow, that other cast role soundsreally interesting and different. Right, So
you do have a lot of creativefreedom in those kinds of things that you
can offer. So you reach outto the person and you schedule with them,
right, You're gonna work with themto figure out a time that works
well for both of you, right, a day and time that works for
delivery. I've also been really surprised, and you know, it's just this

(25:25):
is why I say it's very humbling, right, as a volunteer, the
number of people that don't have workingovens. And I'm not talking about just
people in motels, right, peoplethat are in trailers, in rental houses
where the landlord is not keeping uptheir end of the deal. And some
of these families have not had aworking oven in years. Right, So
I always ask my families, youknow, would would you prefer your lasagna

(25:48):
delivered hot and ready to eat orwould you like it just assembled and ready
to go in your oven? Right? Some people really like to they want
to bake it for their family.Maybe they're saving it for a special Sunday
dinner or something like that. Right, they don't They're not going to eat
it that day, So I's liketo ask and give them that choice.
A lot of people too hot andready, right, because that's pretty magical,

(26:14):
right, show up right at dinnertime. And I usually do try
to deliver either Friday or Saturday atdinner time, right, because that's when
when most people are aren't going towant it. So you're wonderful doing this.
This is wonderful, Well, thankyou. This is one we have.
We have a fantastic team of volunteers, right, it's we have it

(26:36):
is so flexible volunteering with us.And also what it would have put a
shout out with it being summer,right, this is something that a lot
of people love to do as afamily. Activity. So if you want
a good way to distract your kidsfrom their their electronics this summer, right,
get them in the kitchen, teachthem a life skill, and then
also teach them about kindness right,what it's like to give to others.

(27:00):
These are really important values that youwant to instill. So we have a
lot of families that do this inthis summer once a month. They really
engage their children and making lasagnas.We have a couple of eight and twelve
year olds that can actually make alasagna by themselves. Oh my gosh,
that is great. Got to startthem around, that's right, and even

(27:22):
for the younger kids, right,having them draw a picture that gets delivered
with the with the with the lasagna. We also have some like coloring book
pages right about kindness. We havea whole kit to engage kids in this
activity. So if anybody is lookingfor a fun thing to do, it's
very flexible, right, You don'thave to worry about it interfering with your

(27:45):
vacations or any of your summer camps. You decide when you're gonna do it,
and it's a great way to involvemultiple generations. How can people go
online and register and find out aboutit, whether they want to, whether
they want to cook or where theywant. They need Lazigna, they need,
they need help. Lasagna Love dotorg is our website and from there

(28:07):
you can read about volunteering, youcan read about donating. We also have
a fantastic online store with everything fromlike t shirts to coffee mugs to the
things you can use in the kitchen, so that's another way to support us.
Really cute merchandise there and you canalso request a me old there,
So it's it's pretty much one stopshop. We are on all of the

(28:27):
social media platforms, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Oh no,
it's x now the times you knowand you're you're going to start, tell
us again about the days coming upin July, where you want to start
and what you want to do.It is going to be July twenty sixth

(28:48):
through August fourth. You're trying tofeed ten thousand families. So if anybody
wants to give it a try forjust this once that you can go ahead
and sign up today and let usknow you want to be part of that
big event. Will help you getyour schedule worked out so you're cooking during
that ten day timeframe. It's beena pleasure talking to you today. I
really appreciate what you do and yousound like you have fun, and I

(29:11):
like it that you do it becauseI love making lasagna, so I like
that. Hell, it's a greatorganization and it is a lot of fun.
That's great. Thank you so muchfor the opportunity to help spread the
word across Tennessee. It's Lasagna Lovewith Melanie Johnson, Regional director for Tennessee.
For Lasagna Love, you can findout more about them, order and

(29:32):
volunteer at Lasagnalove dot org Lasagna Lovedot org. For questions or comments about
today's program, you can email me, John Clark at iHeartMedia dot com.
Thanks for listening. I'll talk toyou next week right here in this local
radio station on Tennessee Matters
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