Lasagna Love connects home cooks with neighbors in need

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – One of the most powerful ways to show love may be through a pan of lasagna.

Lasagna Love is a global nonprofit with chapters in southern Wisconsin. Anyone can sign up to volunteer and get matched with someone in their area who could use some help with dinner.

“it’s just a lasagna, but it’s not,” Christine Hammond, a Lasagna Love chef, said. “It’s the fact that you are helping someone maybe eat for the first time that day or not have to worry about the cost of groceries.”

Christine Hammond is a volunteer for nonprofit Lasagna Love.(WMTV/Jason Rice)

Now a co-local leader overseeing the Madison area, Hammond says she has cooked for people going through breast cancer treatments or those who lost their jobs.

Hammond first signed up to be a volunteer in 2020. At times, the full-time working mom baked as many as four lasagnas a week, feeding four families in the area.

“This was us growing up,” she said. “Anytime anyone needed a dish or somebody was sick or somebody was in the hospital, you’d bring and make a lasagna. That’s just what we did.”

Shaundra Coleman, a mother of five, was one of Hammond’s latest recipients.

“When you see your kids eating it, it’s like you did something for them today,” she said.

Shaundra Coleman, a Lasagna Love recipient, is a mother of five.(WMTV/Jason Rice)

She admits how hard it can be to provide. “Sometimes I’ll be scared if we’d go a day without food,” she said. “Pantries aren’t open every day, or I won’t have a ride and it’s a lot to carry on the bus.”