Comfort food and hospitals. Usually not two words we put together in the same sentence or thought. However, thanks to the efforts of Dena Hipskind and four of her friends, families facing a stay at Ronald McDonald house while watching over their children at Riley hospital can rest assured that a hot, nutritious meal will be waiting for them.
Comfort Foods was organized in December 2006 as Dena and her friends were contemplating how they could give back to those in times of need. As ideas brewed the group remembered Dena’s worst nightmare and decided to look there.
In early spring 2006, Dena witnessed her 16-month-old son, Auggie, suffer physical and mental deterioration with no confirmed diagnosis. After watching a news story on WRTV6 about another Fishers child with similar symptoms, the Hipskinds began to piece the puzzle together. Auggie was suffering from Opsoclonus-Myoclonus Syndrome (OMS), a cancer-related auto-immune disorder. After numerous rounds of chemo, Auggie is well on his way to recovery and Dena is ready to get to work. “I feel I have healed enough to now be able to help others,” she reports.
“The time spent at Riley was hard, but it was so helpful to have meals provided to my family during those rough days.“Any minute that you are away from that room, you are away from your sick child, so to have someone provide and bring meals is very comforting,” Dena explains. “A lot of people are down there eating fast food standing up, and in times like those you need a healthy, hot meal.” Thus, the birth of Comfort Foods. Originally, Comfort Foods was going to launch its first project in the kitchens of the organizers. The five members were going to shop, prepare, package and deliver all from their own homes. “We were not exactly sure how it was all going to work; we just knew we had to do this,” says Dena. As we got to thinking and planning more we decided that it would really be so much better if we could go to one centralized location and just do it all there. That is when My Girlfriend’s Kitchen became involved.” When Comfort Foods placed a call to Amy Hruskoci, owner of My Girlfriend’s Kitchen, she was immediately onboard to help in whatever way she could. “Amy had a nephew at Riley and understood the need that we were talking about. “She agreed to help with facility use, food, and packaging materials!”
The group held their first cooking session one week before Christmas. Dena, and her fellow cooks, Mikki Carr, Linda Eckel and Beth Greeson, met at My Girlfriend’s Kitchen and quickly whipped out 24 meals. Dishes prepared on their first venture included Turkey Pot Pie, Countess Stroganoff’s Cheecken, Something Wild Mushroom Pasta, Parmesan Heartbreak, Movin’On Up Chicken Crepes and The Leaning Lasagna of Sausage. All dishes were made to serve between four to six people. “We were looking for dishes that would reheat easily while still having high nutritional value,” claims Dena. The meals were put together, packaged with heating directions, and delivered all in one weekend.
All this has been made possible through the generous donations of friends and family. According to Dena, Comfort Foods has funds waiting in the wings for future meals, and was recently given a large donation that will enable them to double the amounts of food made during their first session. However, according to the house manager of Ronald McDonald, the toughest time of year are the months following the holidays.
“Fortunately we have enough money so we can continue feeding Riley families over the next several months; that’s our goal. They don’t have enough freezer space to hold all the meals right away, so we are hoping to replenish them whenever they call with the need. When we exhaust our current funds I am going to go out and find some more,” states Dena.
If you would like to help Comfort Foods with its mission to feed the families of Riley, please contact Dena at dena@hipskind.net or call (317) 903-9635.
