Make Ready Plan


General Information

  • Activity objective: Make sandwiches to send out on the MLF truck.

  • Guiding points: (1) There are people in our immediate community who do not know where their next meal is coming from, (2) helping feed other people is an act of love. 

  • Activity will be 30 minutes with a 5 minute transition time.


Support & Technology Needs

  • None needed.


Activity Set up &Take Down

  • Sunday afternoon setup:

    • Review training plan and talking points;

    • Visit Fisher House make ready area to familiarize yourself with the room. Find hand sanitizer (in pantry area), Clorox wipes, etc.

    • Look over MLF truck (if available) to familiarize yourself with how it is loaded daily for MLF runs.

    • At STM, all supplies will be provided for you at Fisher House. Don’t panic if all supplies are not there on Sunday.  Matt Figlan shops on Monday morning. He will have supplies to you in time for 1st camp group.

    • At non-STM locations, you will need to bring the perishable and food supplies from STM, or talk with the Camp Director to make other arrangements. Check with Camp Director on storage locations. There should be adequate space at all camp locations to keep all your necessary supplies for the week. (Non-food supplies will be provided in a bin that Activity Leaders will be responsible for ensuring restocking.)

    • Take photographs of the areas that you will use, to ensure we return it to the same setup when we leave.


  • Daily (Monday through Thursday):

    • Get ready for 1st group by pre-cutting open packs of meat (at STM, use scissors found in utensil container on wire shelf next to fridge); get table covered with clean butcher paper.

    • On Monday, get as much prepped as possible early on, because the 1st session will likely be a little late - maybe put out the bread on the table as soon as you see them coming.

    • In the first session each day, include 25 sandwiches (to be cut in 1/2 for campers’ snack time) with the 1st group for camp snack. (You can adjust this number on subsequent days as needed to provide more/less depending on the needs of snack coordinator.)

    • Every day, be sure location is left clean and neat (garbage taken to dumpster, area swept, counters wiped down, etc.). Many kitchens will have their own rules posted, so be sure to follow those rules. If thermostat was reset, turn it back to original setting. Turn off lights, put away tables that were set up, etc.  Please take particular care to return any items that may have been moved to their original location, such as knives that you may have borrowed from the host campus kitchen. Store all camp supplies in the camp supply box, and label other boxes and refrigerated items as belonging to MLF camp.

    • Make sure area is left clean and neat daily; reset thermostat (if applicable); turn off lights; make sure garbage is taken out daily if it contains any food waste.

    • At the end of every camp, be sure location is left clean and neat (garbage taken out if needed, area swept, painter’s tape, signs, and labels removed and thrown away, etc.). If thermostat was reset, turn it back to original setting. Turn off lights, put away tables that were set up, etc.  Please take particular care to return any items that may have been moved to their original location.

    • At the end of the week, file a supply request form to replace any necessary supplies. Please submit this form even if no supplies are needed, for documentation purposes.


Activity Supplies (for the week)

  • If you run out of supplies in the main commissary at STM, contact Matt Figlan at 
    512-656-8358.

  • Hand sanitizer

  • Gloves (non-latex)

  • Scissors

  • Knives (at least 2)

  • Butcher paper to cover table

  • Clorox wipes

  • Paper towels (just for incidentals, like resting a knife on the table, etc.)

  • Baggies – 1 / sandwich

  • Bread – 2 slices/sandwich – 1 loaf of bread yields 11 sandwiches, discard ends

  • Meat – 2 slices/sandwich – 1 package of meat yields 16 sandwiches

  • Cheese – 1 slice/sandwich


Lesson Plan

  • (If the MLF truck is available, meet there, show and explain the sides of the truck,  and have the following discussion there before going into commissary/kitchen area to make sandwiches. Otherwise, just have the whole discussion in the same area as where you will make the food.)

  • Welcome to Make Ready, where we will be making sandwiches for hungry people who need something to eat!

  • This week at camp we’re talking about people who are poor or homeless and some of the things we can do to help them.  

  • Let me ask you a question. When you have a friend that is sick, or is going through a hard time, what are some ways that you might try to help them? (they’ll give lots of different examples)

  • Has anyone’s mom or dad ever taken a meal to a friend or another family? Has anyone ever brought your family dinner?

  • So, why do people do this? Why do we make meals for each other? 

  • That’s right.…helping to feed others is an act of love. Have you ever made breakfast for your mom or dad for a special celebration? It feels good to be able to do that for someone, right? 

  • Who here has heard of Mother Teresa? Who was she? She spend her life caring for people who were sick, poor, lonely, and homeless. She was famous because of her kindness to others. She had a lot of wisdom to share, and one thing she said that really applies to us here at camp is “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”

  • Even though you might feel like you are just a kid and unable to help the poor or homeless by giving them money, you can always help fill their hearts and their tummies by being kind and sharing a meal. 

  • Here in Texas, there is a huge need to help feed others. About 4 million people in Texas live with food insecurity. This means they don’t know if they’ll be able to pay for food for their next meal.

  • Some families have to decide between paying for rent or for medicine and paying for food to eat. For example, if a child becomes sick, doctor's visits and medicine cost money that some families would need for buying food. It seems strange to us, but sometimes food is less important than other things people need to pay for, like shelter, transportation, electricity and water.

  • There are also many people that live in a “food desert.” These are places where people don’t have access to grocery stores that have fresh fruits and vegetables, and other foods that help make up a healthy diet. They might live far away from these stores, or they might not have a car or another way to get to them. 

  • The MLF truck goes out every day of the year, driving all over the city to deliver food to the homeless and poor. 

  • They take over one hundred meat/cheese sandwiches and PBJ sandwiches made by volunteers, as well as fruit, chips, cookies, hard boiled eggs, and drinks, and even things that people need like clothes, deodorant, soap, toothbrushes, and books, b/c sometime families can’t afford to buy those things.

  • Have any of you been on a truck run? Do you remember the things that were sent out on the truck?

  • Have you ever thought about what it would be like to not have toothpaste, or soap to take a bath with? Probably not, because we often take these things for granted, if we’ve always been able to have them. So, before we start making sandwiches, let’s get in a circle and take turns naming something that we are thankful for. If you don’t want to say something out loud, just shake your head when it’s your turn.

Activity: Stand in a circle, let kids take turns; then after everyone is done, add a  brief closing in your own words, or use something like the following. “Dear Father, we thank you for these things and so many other things we take for granted. Help us to have grateful hearts and to see how we can help others when they need our help. Amen.” (Remember, you may use the Sign of the Cross if you wish, but don’t specifically lead the kids in saying it.)

  • So, when we are making these sandwiches, remember that whoever receives it will appreciate your kindness and having a full tummy. It might be a mom, a dad, a brother, or a sister - whoever it is, they are a lot like you because they are also a child of God. 

  • So right now, we’re going to be making some sandwiches to have in camp as a snack, and also some that we’ll send out on the MLF truck this evening to feed some of the hungry people and families in Austin.

Making the sandwiches
Plan on each camper making about 10 sandwiches.

  1. Set-up: Butcher paper on table (2 pieces, 1 on each side) 

  2. If group met out by truck, have campers get in single file and go past a group leader with sanitizer and a group leader with gloves, then find a spot at the table. If the group was already in the kitchen area, have group leaders take the sanitizer and gloves to each camper. Remind them to put the gloves on immediately after sanitizing, and also not to touch hair, face, each other, etc.

  3. Sandwich making steps are obviously easy, but it works best if you only have one ingredient out at a time – i.e. only have the meat out until everyone is done with meat. Group Leaders can begin portioning out meat or cheese or whatever, but don’t have them hand it out until everyone is at that same step.

  4. Lay out 1 slice of bread per sandwich being made (they will build sandwiches from bottom to top). This works best if you allocate whatever number to each kid – i.e. if each kid is going to make 5 sandwiches, put 5 slices of bread at each spot.

  5. Add 2 slices of meat. 

  6. Add 1 slice cheese. 

  7. Top with another slice of bread.

  8. For the ½ sandwiches for snack, have a group leader use a knife to slice them in ½.  Each half sandwich goes into a baggie. 

  9. Full sandwiches do not need to be cut in half before bagging. 

  10. Put all full sandwiches in gray bin or a box; put all ½ sandwiches in a separate bin. Label each bin and store in refrigerator until needed. 

  11. GLOVES MAY ONLY BE REMOVED ONCE ALL SANDWICHES ARE BAGGED.


Clean up
After the last group of the day leaves:

  1. Wash knives and scissors and make sure these and all supplies are returned to supply box or are clearly labeled as belonging to MLF camp.

  2. At STM, if there are leftover sandwiches that can be used on the truck run that night, put them in fridge and leave a note on the table or fridge for the people who come in for make ready. At other locations, arrange with camp director for transportation of sandwiches. Leftover half sandwiches that are still usable for snack may be stored in the onsite refrigerator and labeled. (Sandwiches that are in dubious condition to be served for snack should be discarded, and you should probably provide fewer for snack on the following day.)

  3. Make sure you have enough supplies for the following day.

  4. Wipe down table with Clorox wipes.

  5. Sweep floor (do not need to mop)

  6. Bag up all trash. Used boxes can be flattened separately. 

  7. Put new trash bags in cans (at STM, they are usually on a shelf between the door and ice machine).

  8. Take trash bags to dumpster. If the facility has recycling available (STM now DOES recycle), take flattened boxes to recycling dumpster.

Track the Activity Output:

When the activity is complete, the group leaders should count how many sandwiches were produced by their group, and complete the google form with the requested information. Scan the QR code below to access the google form: