CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Between working, taking care of family members and paying bills, Shawna Lopez knows people have a lot on their plate each week.
That’s why she wants to provide them with a free plate of home-cooked food.
Lopez is the founder of Shawna’s Kitchen, a small Cheyenne-based service where she makes and delivers meals for her neighbors in need.
“It’s one thing to help buy ingredients and take it to someone,” she said, “but to actually cook it for [people], and for them to know that I spent time, energy and effort into making a meal, I hope it brings another level of care to them.”
Anyone can book an appointment on the kitchen’s Facebook page. From there, Lopez will reach out and ask for logistics, including how many people she will have to cook for, any dietary restrictions or allergies she should be aware of and where she should drop off the food. Lopez, who also works full-time, will typically cook for one household a week and deliver the food on weekends.
Lopez offers a variety of hearty dinners for her clients, including chicken parmesan sandwiches, caprese salads, chicken Alfredo pasta, Zuppa Toscan and beef chili. Customers can request a certain food; otherwise, Shawna’s Kitchen has no formal menu and each meal is a surprise.
The Cheyenne cook started the free service in June. Inflation is causing grocery prices and living and utility expenses to rise, Lopez said. She wanted to find a way to give back to the community.
“I was just so tired of seeing people see things like ‘Subscribe to this,’ ‘Pay for this,'” she said. “I just thought, wouldn’t it be nice to be like, ‘Here, I’m giving this to you, free of charge, no strings attached.’ I wanted to be that person I wanted to see in my community.”
Shawna’s Kitchen abides by the motto “No questions asked.” People don’t have to be in financial need or offer a reason to request a meal. When customers do choose to share their situation with Lopez, she takes an empathetic approach. She hopes this mentality will help break the stigma around asking for help.
“My response has always been, ‘Thank you so much for trusting me with that,'” she said. “I think there is a vulnerability there in sharing. I think people have a stigma of asking for help, and I didn’t want it to be that. I wanted to be a positive thing.”
In the future, Lopez wants to expand the service and reach as many neighbors as possible.
“If I could, I’d spend more time and energy into doing it,” she said. “That’s really where my passion is, helping people and cooking for people.”
Although Lopez adores cooking, she wasn’t always interested in making dishes from scratch. As she grew up with a single mother in the military and a younger brother, family meals consisted of pre-packaged items that could be served in minutes.
“Everything was cheap, easy, quick to make,” Lopez said. “It was always out of the box or frozen, like Hamburger Helper, Hot Pockets, Ramen. … I felt really insecure in the kitchen or intimidated by cooking.”
The family frequently traveled overseas, settling down in Cheyenne when she was 10. When Lopez moved out of her mother’s home and started college, a friend taught her how to cook. She started learning basic techniques, like how to dice garlic and onion. Soon, Lopez began to feel comfortable in the kitchen and taught herself how to make full meals.
“When I started learning more and more how to cook, I started wanting to do that for myself,” she said. “I found so much healing in not only cooking but eating good food.”
Lopez never attended culinary school or received formal training, yet she remains confident in her ability to find and create tasty recipes for her family and community.
“I think that’s cool [that] in cooking anyone can do it,” she said. “You can really learn intricate recipes and form of cooking by not going to culinary school.”
