Meal trains can be incredibly helpful or incredibly annoying and following these rules will help you to set up a meal train that helps the way you want it to!
Volunteers
Use Sign-up Genius to arrange!
A general email asking people to volunteer only leads to confusion.
Schedule
Alternate days! Most people bring A LOT of food and one quickly runs out of refrigerator space. I suggest having dinner delivered on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Preferences
Indicate any food preferences/allergies and favorite restaurants on the sign-up. If you don't, the volunteers will contact the person receiving the food and it gets really annoying to field a bunch of emails/text about what you want.
Delivery
Put a large cooler on the front porch or side of the house. Tell people to drop the meal there on the sign-up genius.
If not, everyone will try to come in and say hello, which results in the recipient having to talk to and entertain people, which is the opposite of helpful.
Timing
Indicate a specific drop-off time on the sign-up. This allows the recipient to know when the food is arriving and if they want to see people, they can open the door and say hello.
Reminders
Volunteers forget they signed up more often than you expect. Make sure they sign-up sends reminders!