Sign Up Guide: Create a Meal Schedule

sign up guide create a meal schedule

Providing meals for families in need is a practical way to celebrate life's milestones or show generosity. It is also an exceptional way to help a family or community member in need. Whether a baby is born, there is a loss in the family, or a neighbor has a debilitating illness, setting up a meal sign up can help when you want to offer practical help.

Getting Started

When setting up a meal sign up be sure you:

  • Connect with the meal recipient to see what kind of support is most helpful.
  • Ask about meal preferences or whether there are any food allergies.
  • Ask about frequency and certain days of the week they'd like to receive them.
  • Talk about drop off coordination, favorite restaurants and dietary restrictions.
If your sign up invitees don't enjoy cooking or live out of town, ask them to sign up to provide a gift card for the recipient. You can make it simple by providing an email address to send the gift card to.

Genius Tip: Link the family's favorite takeout restaurants (preferably ones that sell gift cards online) to the sign up page for easy selection.

favorite eateries for gift cards list of links

Designing a Meal Organizing Form

Begin by logging in to create a sign up.

Title your sign up with something your group will recognize and select a group to send it to. You can also create a new group by clicking the plus icon next to the Group dropdown list. Next, choose an appropriate theme.

design step - title of sign up select a group and theme design

Click Save and Continue, which will take you to the Slots step. Here you can select the format for your sign up. For meals, choose Sort by Date. Select Add Dates and choose the dates for meal delivery.

Select +Add Slots and enter titles for the different types of meals. For example, you may need a slot for cooked meals, and you may need an additional slot for electronic gift cards, or you can simply title a slot as "meal" if there are no specific needs.

Choose the Number Wanted as the maximum number of people who can sign up for the slot. For meals it often makes the most sense to have one person per slot, so choose the number 1. Save or Save and Add Another if you'd like more options.

add a meal slot

When you get to the Settings tab, there are various options for customizing the sign up. Choose what information is required and what is optional in the Ask Participants For section.

Genius Tip: In the Settings section, be sure to rename the Comment field and require a comment for participants to enter the dish they will bring. This way, participants can see the types of meals that others will deliver and avoid everyone bringing the same meal.

What type of meal will you bring? Custom comment

If your sign up has a long list of dates and slots, you may want to hide dates to make the sign up more manageable and current. In the Settings tab, you can automatically hide past and/or future dates on the sign up.

Be sure to select Save and then Publish your sign up. Next you'll want to share your sign up and send it out to anyone who may want to sign up.

meals for the thomas family full sign up

Ta da! You can now bring your community together and care for people in need with some delicious food. Happy cooking!

Create a Sign Up