A Turner Valley woman dishing up meals in times of crisis hopes she’s meeting the needs of residents in her region.
Christina Taylor spearheaded A Frozen Meal or Two seven years ago, providing home-cooked meals short-term for Foothills residents facing crisis situations such as illness or job loss.
“My oldest son was born with a serious heart condition and had surgery at 10 days old,” she said. “Some people provided meals for us and growing up with the church it’s a very common thing if someone is sick or in the hospital where people will put together a casserole.
“Not everybody has that support system.”
Taylor said she’s trying to get the word out about the service to people in crisis who may not have those natural supports.
“We can go for quite a while not hearing anything and in a week we can hear from three different people,” she said. “Obviously it’s a good thing if people aren’t experiencing crisis, but it might be that the word isn’t as spread as far as we would like it to be.”
Taylor takes the requests and does the meal planning, and receives help shopping for the ingredients. Volunteers with Youth With a Mission assist with the cooking in the charitable organizations’ facility.
“A group of us will get together and do large batch cooking, two to three meals at a time and about 40 portions for each,” she said.
All food preparation takes place in the Youth With a Mission’s licensed kitchen, which is inspected regularly, said Taylor.
In addition to providing volunteers, Youth With a Mission also funds the program.
“We’ve had offers of financial support, but there’s no need for it at this point,” she said. “We’ve been able to cover our costs. If we get to be a bigger operation we will definitely open to community sponsors.”
Turner Valley mother of two Kylie McElroy was on the receiving end of A Frozen Meal or Two four years ago after suffering from a broken foot. She was at home with two young children and her husband was working long days at the time.
“It was very helpful and it took away a lot of stress,” she said. “It was definitely a blessing for us.”
Since receiving help from A Frozen Meal or Two, McElroy has referred the service to two friends when they were in need. One suffered post partum depression after having twins and another, a mom of five children, lost her husband.
“It’s an amazing service that she offers,” said McElroy. “I’ve never seen a service like this anywhere.”
Taylor works alongside other organizations that support people in need, such as the Oilfields Food Bank.
For more information or to make a request contact Christina Taylor at 403-667-2447, [email protected] or search find A Frozen Meal or Two on Facebook.
