There’s no problem that a pan of lasagna can’t solve.
While that statement isn’t really true, Rhiannon Menn believes it can at least help.
“Lasagna is the quintessential comfort food,” she told The Epoch Times. “It communicates warmth and love.”
At the start of the lockdowns in March 2020, Menn was a mom in San Diego who wanted to do something kind to support families in her neighborhood who were contending with pandemic-related woes.
Through a social media post, she offered to deliver a hot pan of lasagna to the doorstep of anyone who was interested in one.
The First Delivery
After Menn posted her offer online, there were seven families who responded.One of them was a woman who was taking care of her mother, sister, and a 6-month-old baby. Her income had stopped due to the lockdown and their refrigerator had broken down.
“They had been eating ramen noodles for two weeks,” Menn said. “That just broke my heart.”
When Menn drove up to the residence, she saw the discarded refrigerator out front.
“I burst into tears,” she said.
She knew then that she had to keep donating pans of lasagna as long as she could.
Exponential Growth
In March and April 2020, Menn made the first seven deliveries on her own.“By May, I had 10 volunteers in San Diego and I wasn’t even looking for volunteers. I wasn’t looking to grow,” she said.
At the end of September, Menn was on the “Today” show.
“We went from 500 to 5,000 volunteers within a month,” she said.
That program was Kelly Andolina’s introduction to Lasagna Love.
“I immediately went to sign up to be a volunteer,” she told The Epoch Times. Andolina is now its regional director of New York and Pennsylvania.
Lasagna Love became an official charity with 501(c)(3) status in November 2020.
Not Just for Families
In addition to delivering to families in need, Lasagna Love also provides food for firefighters, police officers, and hospital nurses.In one night, Andolina oversaw the delivery of a staggering number of pans of lasagna to three hospitals in upstate New York to feed a total of about 300 nurses. This included salad and dessert.
Volunteers have also provided meals to first responders and victims of natural disasters, such as the California wildfires.
A Lifetime of Cooking
When the United States experienced a large influx of European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the matriarchs of those families cooked traditional meals from the country from which they came. The children of these immigrants learned to cook the same meals. Essentially, Italian families cooked Italian meals, Hungarian families cooked Hungarian meals, and so on.Times have changed. Young people learning how to cook in modern America learn how to cook meals from ethnicities in addition to their own.
Lasagna is an Italian dish. Menn is of Ukrainian descent.
“We make borscht and perogies,” she said.
“I’ve been cooking since I was small enough to make brownies in the microwave.”
Menn learned to cook all through grade school into high school, and owned a catering company at age 16.
Paying It Forward
Menn discovered that a large percentage of the recipients are so touched by the gesture that they “pay it forward,” often immediately.
One January, a recipient said he was so moved and impacted by the donation that he turned around and paid his upstairs neighbor’s heating bill.
In another instance, a woman received a pan of lasagna and the next day learned about a local family who had lost everything in a fire. She happened to have three storage units full of furniture. She donated it all to the family.
“The world needs more kindness,” Andolina said. “And I think that this organization shines through with the kindness. It’s amazing.”
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