Meal Provider Program

This is a great team-building opportunity and a fun way to get friends together for a good cause. Volunteers providing meals can choose to cook offsite and deliver a shelter meal, or can cook and serve the meal onsite, interacting directly with program participants and ensuring that the residents of our three Short-term Residential Programs and five Emergency Shelters have access to healthy, wholesome meals.

Meal Provider groups consist of a team leader and small group of volunteers - family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, or another type of service group - who come together to cook a full meal for shelter participants. It is mandatory for the leader of your meal provider group to attend a Volunteer Orientation before your first scheduled meal date. This consists of a 60-minute general orientation, followed by 30 minutes specific to the meal provider program.

Ways to Help with Meals

Provide a meal to a shelter:

• The group plans, purchases and prepares dinner for 55-120 residents.

• Your group may choose to:

  • Cook onsite (at shelters with kitchen facilities) and serve the meal to participants;

  • Cook offsite, bring a ready-to-serve meal to shelter, and serve the meal to participants or

  • Cook offsite, and deliver the meal to the shelter for staff to serve.

• Already a meal provider? Log in to your volunteer portal to sign up to serve!

• Check out recipes previous meal providers have used, scaled for large groups already, here!

Deliver sack lunches to a shelter:

• At our shelters without kitchens, groups have the opportunity to provide sack lunch-style meals for our residents. These meals must contain a healthy, complete meal, including items such as a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a granola bar, and a bottle of water.

• Sack lunches should be delivered between 10 AM and noon. Earlier deliveries can be arranged with advance notice, and for non-perishable sack meals.