If you feed them they will come? There is something about food that helps draw youth to a youth group meeting. It is partly because Jr. and Sr. high students like to eat. But more so I think it has to do with relationships.
At our meals youth have a chance to sit down beside new friends and old. They talk about their day, about their week. They show photos on their cell phones, discuss upcoming class projects, meet new people, laugh, joke, plan, and just share life together.
When our group was small it was easy to for me to pick something up, or for one parent to bring a meal for the night. As the group has grown we now are having cooking teams of 2-3 come together to provide a meal. One of the most often asked questions is what do the youth like to eat.
My meal coordinator is a wonderful blessing. She works to make sure we have meals covered for every night. Last year we had every Sunday and Wednesday meal set up, served and cleaned up by our awesome teams of parents.
I asked her to provide a list of some of the most popular and easy meals. Here they are…
1. Penna pasta and jar of Alfredo sauce with green salad/fruit and dessert
2. Baked potatoes with toppings and dessert
3. Sandwich tray, chips/dips, fruit/dessert
4. Chicken spaghetti, green salad/fruit, dessert
5. Chili (homemade or canned from Sams), fritos, cheese, green salad/fruit, dessert
6. Sloppy joes or BBQ from Sams, green salad/fruit, dessert
7. Taco pile ups with chips, ground meat, cheese, lettuce, etc. and dessert.
8. Frozen lasagne (Sams), salad, dessert.
There are tons more ideas out there. If you have a favorite meal youth youth group enjoys and works well for large groups please share it in the comments or on Facebook!
Cereal. Just have a large variety of cereal and let students go to town. This is a cheap meal and can be fun to have as a dinner.
Great Idea Chad!!!
That’s actually this Wednesday’s meal for us. Our food pantry is always in need of cereal so I am having each youth bring 2 boxes. We’ll probably end up eating only 1/4 of it so that will leave plenty of boxes to be donated to the food pantry.
Exactly what I was looking for…thank you!
Glad it helps!
We are leaders of a community youth group. We have teens from many churches attend on 2nd and 4th Saturdays. We are there for 3 hours, so we serve them an evening meal. Our youth love Spaghetti, Galic Bread, and Salad. Taco Salads are a big hit using chili, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sour cream and salsa. Their favorite is our burrito buffet, with taco meat, retried beans, cheese, tomatoes, onions, sour cream, and taco sauce.
Thank you for your ideas. We haven’t done baked potatoes and fixins, or sloppy joes yet. They will definitely be used at our next 2 meetings!
I’d love to hear how your meals went.. thanks for your comment