In 2020, during the uncertainty of the pandemic, my family and I (two kids, three dogs, one husband) relocated to Ogunquit, Maine. Soon, my three nieces joined us as schools shut down. We found ourselves spending more time together than ever around the kitchen table…life suddenly became much smaller and strange for so many families.
We had stability though…a warm home, food, and connection…we knew many others did not.
After the girls mourned their own losses, we held a meeting to see what we could do to help. Since we were spending so much time together eating, we decided to create a cookbook with 100% of proceeds benefiting Feeding America. What followed was less of a professional production team and more of a hilarious family operation filled with voting on recipes, tossing some out, styling food, taking photos, teasing each other, and laughing a whole lot along the way.
The cookbook isn’t exactly James Beard material (far from it!), but with the support of friends and family, it helped provide more than 100,000 meals to families in need during a pivotal time in our country.
More importantly, it revealed something unexpected: while we were trying to help others, the project was also strengthening our own connection as a family.
When the pandemic ended, we were volunteering with Agape Youth & Family Center in Atlanta to deliver meals to families. As we ran meals to the doors, I started thinking beyond food insecurity and about the homes families were returning to each night.
