This is the fourteenth year that UU Charlottesville has operated our Hospital Meal Packet Ministry. We use your donations to buy food that need no preparation beyond use of a microwave oven or adding hot water to put together “Meal Packets”: one gallon plastic bags that hold enough food to feed one person for one day.

Click here to donate
throughout the month of December

Thank you for supporting this “home grown” social action project. Our church created meal packets in 2010, and since that time we have donated over 7,000 to the University of Virginia Medical Center.

A meal packet is a one gallon plastic bag holding enough food to feed one person for one day. It does not need refrigeration or preparation beyond use of a microwave oven.  We donate the meal packets to the social work office at the medical center where they are given to caregivers of patients or to people who are there for outpatient treatment. The people who receive our meal packets do not have the financial means to eat at the hospital cafeteria and the hospital does not give them food because they are not patients. Without our meal packets these people will not eat. The social work office says the greatest demand for meal packets is for family members of pediatric and neonatal intensive care patients and our meal packets might feed these recipients for a long time, like months. The emergency room, cancer and organ transplant units also use many meal packets.

Assembling meal packets is a lot of fun. In earlier years we mostly had children in RE do this on “Meal Packet Assembly Day”. Fun, fun, fun. Not only do they to fill the bags but they also make a card for the recipient that expresses our care and concern. The project is a wonderful opportunity for the children in our congregation to act on our First UU Principle, “The inherent worth and dignity of every person”, and Second, “Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.” Over the years, however, almost everyone in the church has volunteered or answered the call when we need help to make meal packets.

After a lull during Covid, the demand has been growing steadily and we receive calls from the social work office almost every month that the meal packet cabinet is down to one shelf of supplies.

Thank you very much for your donation. Right now with careful shopping we can feed a person for between $7 and $8 per day. Your generosity helps not only the people who will eat our food but also the patients who know the person sitting next to their bed is not hungry. We have heard lots and lots of feedback and thanks from hospital staff about how much they appreciate our assistance.

If you have questions or suggestions and want to help, please contact Rev. Leia or Margaret Gorman