Meal service that allows others to donate funds

March 15, 2022 4:58 AM

My wife has entered hospice care, with me as her primary caregiver. So there can be a lot to do and cooking takes up time, hence considering a meal service. Do you know of why that'll allow other people to donate funds to our account? That way faraway friends and family could help out in tangible ways.
posted by Brandon Blatcher to Food & Drink (15 answers total)

Response by poster: FYI, we're based in the USA.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:07 AM on March 15, 2022

Freshly might meet your needs. Heat and eat meals are shipped once a week. Friends and family can send gift cards. It is pricey, but convenient.

Sending good thoughts to your family.
posted by slmorri at 5:22 AM on March 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Hello Fresh allows people to purchase gift cards for others to apply to their subscription. I would bet most of these services do something similar.

You and your family are in my thoughts.
posted by gauche at 5:42 AM on March 15, 2022

If you're OK with vegan meals, Veestro lets people buy gift cards. I do this for my daughter all the time, and she really likes the food.
posted by FencingGal at 6:28 AM on March 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I’m sorry to hear this. You can get gift cards for Door Dash and Uber Eats.

I’ve been on MeFi a long time (different names) and have always appreciated your posts. Be well.
posted by haptic_avenger at 6:30 AM on March 15, 2022 [12 favorites]

I used Freshly for a few months, and would agree with the recommendation - most of the meals are quite good for pre-prepared food, there are lots of "healthy" options, and price-wise it's about on par with buying takeout (so, a little more expensive but not prohibitively so). The meals are not frozen when you get them, but can be kept frozen if needed.

Whatever you choose, Brandon, I hope you share your choice for people here to chip in. You are a valued member of this community, and I am sure your fellow MeFites will want to help you and your wife. My thoughts are with both of you.
posted by briank at 6:30 AM on March 15, 2022 [44 favorites]

Response by poster: Whatever you choose, Brandon, I hope you share your choice for people here to chip in. You are a valued member of this community, and I am sure your fellow MeFites will want to help you and your wife.

Thank you so much for that, but we have a good support network and y'all are helping a lot by answering questions. I've never done hospice before so this and answers to any future questions I may have will be deeply appreciated.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:59 AM on March 15, 2022 [20 favorites]

Best answer: Are you familiar with mealtrain? It's not a service exactly but a system.
posted by pazazygeek at 7:40 AM on March 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: My friend's wife is in hospital right now and I sent them an Uber Eats / Door Dash virtual gift card. It's really easy for people to send - if they have an account it only takes a minute - and it can be used by you any time, any place (delivered to hospice, home, etc), and with a huge variety of foods to choose from.

If you're somewhere with access to fridge space, you can use Uber Eats to order large amounts from one restaurant to eat over 2-3 days, which saves a bit of money on the service fees and means there's always some food in the fridge so you're not waiting for it to arrive when you're hungry and tired.

I often order Italian and get 3 days' worth of food from one restaurant: steak for day one, pasta for day 2, pizza for day 3.
Or Vietnamese: fried spring rolls to eat hot immediately, bahn mi sandwiches that keep for a couple days (you can ask for no mayo and add your own, to keep the baguette from getting mushy), mango salad is good on day 2, and noodle+meat dishes to microwave on day 2-3.

I'm sorry you're in this tough position, sending you peaceful vibes.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 8:07 AM on March 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Not sure why it has not been mentioned but you why noy Meals On Wheels? They do great food and will happily accept donations.
posted by charlesminus at 8:29 AM on March 15, 2022

Hi Brandon Blatcher, I remember answering your question about hepatic encephalopathy and I'm sorry things have reached this point. I am the other side of the Atlantic so can't help with specific services, but if you put the link in this post or in your profile, I would be happy to chip in for a meal or two.
posted by altolinguistic at 9:56 AM on March 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

I'm going to second Freshly, which we've used for my husband's lunches for a couple years now. No cooking, no cleanup, you just dispose of the shipment packaging and microwave each meal as you're ready to eat. You can curate your shipment via the website every week or you can just kinda set some preferences and let the algo deal with it (you may get a lot of multiples this way, doing a bit of curation only takes a few minutes a week).

The meals are appropriately portioned and taste good. They do have foods that fall into a few health options - some lower-carb selections, and they've just added some plant-based meals - but none of them have crazy bad macros.

People can buy you gift cards and you just use them like payment credits.

I have a referral code that gives me and you some credit, if you want to use it.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:52 AM on March 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Meal Train Plus allows you to accept meals from local people and also to accept cash donations from faraway people.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this right now, Brandon Blatcher, please do give us the link when you decide how you’re going to do it. You’re a very familiar face around here and I suspect a lot of us would like to chip in.
posted by hungrytiger at 11:23 AM on March 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

Some folks set up a Meal Train for us when my wife was recovering from back surgery and it was very helpful. Most folks donated gift cards or cash, but it does allow for folks to schedule deliveries of home cooked food, if that is preferable on either end.

Sending good thoughts your way as well. Take care.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:34 PM on March 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Count on me to chip in - I know personally how difficult a time like this is and I would be honored to be of service to you during this journey.
posted by Kangaroo at 3:50 PM on March 16, 2022