What is the newborn meals project?

We aim to provide families connected to our church with up to 14 meals after they have welcomed a new baby into their family. We love families and babies at St John’s and want to support new families by delivering home cooked meals to their houses after a new arrival.

How to receive support from the project?

The families we support are already connected to another ministry at St John’s, perhaps though the baby and toddler group, Playtime, via Footprints or a regular member of the congregation. Someone who works for the church will approach the expectant/new parent and ask if they would like any meals. Their contact details are then passed onto the newborn meals coordinator, Natalie Tisdall, who will be in touch with some questions about food preferences etc before the rota is set up. Volunteer cooks will then sign up for a particular day and arrange with the recipient when it best to delivery the meals. We use re-usable church dishes which are returned to the church by the recipient after use.

How can I sign up to cook meals?

We always welcome new people to cook meals. There is no obligation to cook for every rota request and we normally only cook for one or two rotas a year. When there is a new rota, details will be emailed to everyone who has volunteered to cook meals. There will be a range of dates that the recipient has asked for meals and you sign up for whichever day is convenient for you. The rota website we use is called ‘take them a meal‘ and it’s very simple and user friendly! Please email baby.meals@stjohnsegham.com if you would like to be added to the list of volunteer cooks.

What do I cook?

The recipient will provide details of any food likes and dislikes, along with any allergies, if applicable. This will be shown on the rota website. Meals in the past have been curries, pasta dishes, chicken pie, fish pie, fajitas, cottage pie, lasagne, sausage casserole etc. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy or complicated, healthy, nutritious food which is easy to re-heat is ideal.

How do the re-usable dishes work?

There is a cupboard in the Easter Centre with dedicated newborn meal dishes in it. When you have signed up to cook a meal, just collect a dish from here and cook and deliver you meal using it. Then your job is done and the recipient will return the dish to the cupboard once they have cleaned it!