Barb Kramer’s oven has seen a lot of lasagna. She’s baked about 250 trays over the past few years in her volunteer role as a lasagna chef for Lasagna Love, a homemade-meal delivery organization. That’s where Barb’s husband, Rich, enters the picture. He drives her and the lasagna to families dealing with food insecurity.
“The stories are incredibly compelling,” Barb Kramer said. “I think the hardest ones for me and Rich are delivering to families who are living in hotels. Sometimes they want it hot and ready to eat, because they don’t have a working oven or a hot plate.”
It’s a simple volunteer assignment: Assemble and bake the lasagna, then deliver it to a family desperately in need of a hot, nourishing meal.
“You never know what the need is, and that’s one of the things that I really love about Lasagna Love,” she said. “People do not have to fill out any forms or meet any requirements. That’s one of the appealing areas for me, is that there’s no judgment, no questions, just a need.”
The Kramers are an impressive volunteer duo. Barb created a program delivering holiday bags to Congregation Shaare Emeth members who live in independent and assisted living facilities. Again, Rich is right there with her as wingman.
Barb Kramer has been a board member of ITN Gateway for five years. The transportation network provides rides for older adults and people with disabilities. She is also a veteran volunteer for National Council of Jewish Women-St. Louis.
“I have loved volunteering for the important work that NCJW does, being a part of Kids’s Community Closet,” she said. “NCJW is a great advocate for families and kids. If there are opportunities to help others, we do it. Through the years, Rich and I have each had our niche of what works and what brings the most good, helping out through NCJW.
“There are kids who don’t have clothes to go to school. There are stories NCJW tells about families that had to share a coat. And the kids went every other day because it was their turn to have the coat, which is incredible.”
Rich Kramer is an active volunteer, too. He has staffed the USO at Lambert Airport for years, where he welcomes members of the military. He was a rider and fundraiser for the March of Dimes through its Bikers for Babies initiative. He also has been a member of two Shaare Emeth committees.
“The reward is in volunteering,” he said. “It just feels good to be doing something worthwhile.”
The Kramers’ support of worthy causes feels natural for their personalities and values, said Vicki Oren, a longtime friend who lives in Israel.
“Their friendship, their deeds, their actions, speak for themselves,” Oren said. “Barb and Rich both have a great capacity to see a need and get involved in any level they feel they can best contribute. Their capacity to offer support, concern, wisdom, experience, hands-on, and take control is abundant, and so many different avenues have benefited in so many ways from the projects, the works, the volunteerism, the energy that together they generate. They are selfless and for the common good of all.”
That value system was a direct result of the example their parents set. Barb’s mother taught at Central Institute for the Deaf and their family meals always included Jewish students.
“In later years, she baked for Ronald McDonald House, and she was doing things for other families,” Barb Kramer said. “I think that instilled in me and my siblings that this is something that is joyous and helps, and not hard.
“It was not until the pandemic when Lasagna Love came my way. It was the beginning of the pandemic, and I was dismayed to see the long lines at the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry. Then my daughter found out about Lasagna Love. She thought I would like it. I learned about the program and began to help out, so I’ve made a lot of lasagna over the last our years.”
Barb’s first volunteer role came at age 15. It was at a residential camp for people with disabilities run by the Easter Seals.
“That started me on my path to being involved in camping, kids with disabilities, families and working within education in the not-for-profit world for 50 years,” she said of her career. “I knew that I really liked that and ended up at the Jewish Community Center and other places working and running camps.”
The J was a good fit for Barb. She worked there for 25 years as a director of camping, early childhood development and special education. In later years, she worked as a program director at Variety Children’s Charity.
Rich lost his father at the age of 8 and started working odd jobs as a teenager. The family didn’t have a lot of extra money, so he learned to sustain himself. He held a variety of jobs, including selling ironing board covers door to door and ice cream from a truck. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, he had a career in accounting and construction.
Like Barb, Rich also remembers his first volunteer experience. He was a Cub Scout when he sold candy as a fundraising project. Rich recalls that he probably consumed quite a bit of the inventory.
“My first real volunteering was when I came back from Vietnam,” Rich said. “I was a finance officer for the Jewish War Veterans Post 644.”
The Kramers say their motivation for volunteering is seeing results and learning about issues.
“You learn what the community needs and what else can be done to help people with some very basic needs,” Barb Kramer said. “I think food insecurity hit home to me, especially during the pandemic, when people who never had those issues began to experience them because companies closed or they were laid off. That’s what I really liked about being able to help.”
