From Delray Beach kitchen, feeding multitudes in need
Parker Forman of Delray Beach helps fight food insecurity one lasagna at a time by cooking the Italian staple and donating the 9-pound trays to local churches that give them to needy people. Photos by Tim Stepien
By Faran Fagen
On Sunday mornings at 9:30, while many of his friends are sleeping in, 17-year-old Parker Forman begins a four-hour culinary regimen in his Delray Beach kitchen. He bakes lasagna — sometimes more than 140 pounds — for hungry families.
After cooking the lasagna for about 1.5 hours at 350 degrees — topped off by 20 minutes outside the oven for it to cool — Forman takes in the zesty aroma of hot meats and cheeses lined up in 9-by-13-inch tin trays.
“Every time I cook the lasagnas, I want to take a bite,” Forman said. “Every time I cook for people, I’m having an impact on my community.”
Once the lasagnas have cooled, Forman piles the thick tins into his parents’ van and drives — slowly — to two Delray Beach churches: St. Matthew’s Episcopal and Restoration House Empowerment Ministries International, known as RHEMI. After his weekly operation is complete, church volunteers then deliver the lasagnas to families in their community.
Forman says he has always loved lasagna and it was a good meal to mass produce. He can make up to 12 trays at a time and sometimes does two batches of eight trays each.
“To me, lasagna means getting together with a lot of people and eating together,” said Forman, a senior at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale. “To me, it’s about helping as many people as I can and feeding as many people as possible.”
Forman starts by seasoning the ground beef and Italian sausage, above, then adding the pasta and spreading the ricotta cheese in layers, below.
Each 9-pound tray of Forman’s homemade lasagna can feed up to eight people, and with his team of five student volunteers, he has already served more than 1,000 people throughout South Florida.
What started as Forman’s simple gesture — bringing his signature lasagna to St. Matthew’s — has grown into a Florida-registered nonprofit organization called Food4Need Inc. (food4needinc.com)
The student-run nonprofit operates multiple days a week, partners with three churches (First Baptist Church in Pompano Beach is the third) and regularly distributes 300-plus pounds of food.
Forman has loved cooking since he was a child. When he was younger, he enjoyed chopping food in the kitchen with his parents, Jennifer and Brett.
At the end of 2022, as the pandemic waned, the then Pine Crest freshman wanted to give back. The family often participated in Thanksgiving food drives and Christmas toy drives but he wanted to do something himself.
After reaching out to charities, he developed a relationship with St. Matthew’s and started cooking and delivering six or seven lasagnas each Sunday. He realized that he could do more.
In his junior year, the nonprofit was formed, and Forman brought on people and more deliveries.
“I had to bring on more people because so many relied on me and my lasagna,” Forman said. “We rarely miss a week. We try to deliver every week.”
All meals are cooked fresh by Forman and his friends, who all attend Pine Crest School.
Meals are funded by community donations and supported in part by Sprouts Farmers Market, but Food4Need is trying to get more from grants and foundations. All donations go straight to ingredients; none of the team members is paid.
Besides Forman, who serves as president, the Food4Need team includes co-founder/Vice President Max Hazleton, 17, Pompano Beach; Ryan Kelly del Valle, 17,Boca Raton; Hudson Schwartz, 17, Boca Raton; Zach Moss, 17, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea; and Blake Grossman, 17, Boca Raton.
“When Parker first came to me with his idea and asked for help, I was excited to have the opportunity to give back and help my community,” Kelly del Valle said.
Another key component of the operation is Cynthia Ridley, a 50-year volunteer of St. Matthew’s Church.
“My focus is to make sure we reach the families who need these lasagnas the most,” Ridley said. "This lasagna relieves stress for a mother of six kids to know how they’re going to feed their family.”
Ridley said the church families love it because the lasagna stretches a long way.
Over the last two years, the program has been so successful that deliveries have expanded to senior citizens.
Parker Forman drops off tins of lasagna in August at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach. The Rev. Lloyd Newton and Yolanda Spells accept on behalf of the church, which then delivered the food to people in the St. Matthew’s community.
“I think it means a lot and I’m surprised he’s able to keep it up,” Ridley said. “It’s been a blessing to the community. It’s homemade, so it’s very good. People are so grateful that we drop it off at their house.”
Forman, a straight-A student and varsity lacrosse player, has a strict formula for success. He prioritized his life in this order: school and studying, Food4Need, lacrosse, and friends.
“I study hard so I have time for my nonprofit,” Forman said. “Every time I cook for people, I’m having a bigger impact on my community. It’s nice to know I’m having a positive impact on people’s lives.”
Ridley said she can tell Forman has been raised by good parents.
“He’s got amazing kindness,” she said. “I’m quite sure he’ll do something great. His influence won’t end here.”
Forman plans to attend college out of state for business school or hospitality/food management. His top five choices are Penn State, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Michigan and the University of Texas at Austin.
But for his senior year of high school, Forman says he’s going to continue cooking as much as he can.
His long-term goal is for an underclassman at Pine Crest to take over the nonprofit when he goes away to college. Someone is already shadowing as a possibility.
“I’ll still be involved even if I can’t do the physical cooking,” Forman said.
Over the summer, in addition to cooking lasagna, he worked 30 hours a week at Peter’s Pizzeria in East Boca Raton. Once school started, the job ended.
But his real passion is cooking lasagna for Food4Need. He found a recipe on Pinterest, but substituted a few ingredients to make the recipe his own.
“It’s the typical ingredients,” he said. “Ground beef and Italian sausage, lots of seasoning, tomato sauce, meat sauce, pasta noodles, ricotta, mozzarella, and eggs. And in the end, I sprinkle mozzarella and parmesan cheese on top.
“I put hard work into each lasagna so it tastes great,” he said. “I think they really love the meat I cook myself — that’s what gets them.”
Donations can be made at food4needinc.com
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