For Rhiannon Menn, Lasagna Love showcases the network effect of kindness. “For me, food is love, and it’s how I communicate care and support—so I just decided to start making meals,” she says. Specifically lasagna.

Back in March 2020, she posted on some local groups for moms saying, “‘Hey, if you need a home-cooked meal—no questions asked, my toddler and I are doing this, it keeps her busy, we love it—send me a message and I’ll drop one off at your doorstep.’” 

The first week, they made seven meals in their kitchen in San Diego. Within a few weeks, other moms were offering to cook, and Rhiannon connected volunteers with families who requested meals. Social media spread the idea. In September, the Today show called as she was driving across the US in a camper with her husband and two young kids.

In the month after the Today segment, the volunteer base grew from 400 to 4,000. 

Realizing she needed help with logistics (she’d been using a Google spreadsheet and Google Maps to pair volunteers with families by proximity), her friend Jason Liang Chen connected her to students in the MIT Leaders for Global Operations Program. They built her an algorithm. 

Today, nearly 50,000 volunteers span every US state and three countries, and more than 400,000 lasagnas have been delivered. Beyond providing meals to families in need, says Rhiannon, Lasagna Love has become an international kindness movement, almost entirely run by volunteers. (It also operates in Australia and Canada.)

“For every one act, there’s a three-degree ripple effect,” she says. “The more acts of kindness that you can connect in the community, the more that ripples outward. And I think that has the potential to really strengthen communities in a way that we quite honestly could use.” 

In a 2022 survey, nearly 98% of Lasagna Love recipients said they were inspired to pay it forward. Many paid it forward within days (21%), while others committed to a specific action in the future (45%). The rest made a general commitment to do something kind. 

The most frequent pay it forward commitment: food. Of those surveyed, nearly half planned to share a meal or donate food to another struggling family, and many of those wanted to do so themselves as Lasagna Love volunteers.

“As we move into our third year of operation, we recognize that our true power is so much greater,” said Rhiannon. “We are inspiring pay it forward acts of kindness across communities and increasing feelings of connectedness and support among neighbors. It’s fitting that we are releasing these findings just ahead of national Pay it Forward Day.”

There is a volunteers’ portal with a recommended recipe, food safety information, training videos and instructional materials. Volunteers get weekly emails letting them know how many “matches” they have. Some make numerous lasagnas a week, while others might only have the time and budget to deliver one a month. 

People who sign up to receive a lasagna provide their contact info, address, any dietary restrictions, and sometimes optional details, such as why they need help. The program’s low barrier to entry is one key to its success, says Menn. Requesters need only submit an online form to request a meal. Then the volunteer coordinates the delivery, logging the date of contact, scheduled delivery date, and delivery confirmation in the system. 

One goal of the organization, says Rhiannon, is to eliminate the stigma from asking for help.

She is making Lasagna Love’s technology open source so other nonprofits can use it, she says in a lovely story in the MIT Alumni News Magazine. “We’ve created this platform that connects neighbors with neighbors for service,” she says. “If we can do this for food delivery, which we were repeatedly told in the beginning we couldn’t do, there are so many other services this could be leveraged for.”

Sources:

Lasagna Love Reaches 200,000 Meal Deliveries and Proves Network Effect Of Kindness Lasagna Love, April 20, 2022

Lasagna Love Spreads Layers of Kindness. MIT Alumni Magazine, Apr. 23 2024

Cover image: MIT Alumni News Magazine.