I have sent food trays to the funneral home for friends who have lost loved ones. It gives them the opportunity to take a break and not feel like they are abandoning their "post" at the visitations and everyone loves it. Whatever you do it is the love and thoughtfulness that is appreciated.

We have had fruit delivered to the house for funerals and I loved it! I also like the Omaha Steak idea. I often take a box that includes snacks (for the kids), fresh fruit, paper plates, toilet tissue, paper towells, coffee/tea, and a gift card to the grocery. It seems it is easy to send someone to the store with the gift cars if needed. I also often send a meat and cheese tray and crackers.

Flowers to a funeral, fruit to the family home. Yes, that is a great idea.

When a family member far away recently died, I sent a small ham and turkey combo from my favorite online meat co, Neuske's. They have wonderful items and we have their apple wood bacon stocked at all times. They have cherry smoked stuff too but not a big a selection as the "big guys" but quality is amazing.

Their daughter said, that's what I'm going to do! They were so appreciative which gave me a warm cozy feeling.

i actually think it is a WONDERFUL IDEA.... When my husband was killed 11 yrs ago we had a huge amount of flowers while beautiful what can 1 do with THAT MANY FLOWERS.... Our church gave us a Beautiful basket with fruits & nuts.... When u consider 2 things the last thing families r thinking about is food YET they still need to eat so anything quick is wonderful & the vit c & other goodies in fruit WILL HELP THE IMMUNE system stay strong in the time of grief... So while flowers r beautiful & yet traditional the fruit however is MUCH MORE Practical & useful & WILL stand out among the blessings.....

What we have done in the past.

If there are children involved (death of a parent or close relative), we send a basket with lots of kids treats, juice boxes etc as well as things to keep the kids occupied based on age ( crayons and colouring books, match box cars, deck of cards, games etc). Often the kids are forgotten when memorial gifts are sent.

For adults a gourmet basket, crackers, cheese, meats, tea, coffee etc plus a bottle of wine.

The above gift baskets are available from my local grocery store florist.

If I know the people are gardeners, I will send a nice plant to be planted outside.

I like the suggestion of sending paper plates, TP, garbage bags etc. I would add freezer containers, the ziploc or glad ones.

I worked for a catering company for many years. Often after a funeral a family would have food dropped off, more than they could eat before it spoiled. Freezer containers would allow them to keep some of the food for later.

I usually send a card with money. That way the family can decide what to use it for. I do agree that flowers, while pretty, are wasted. When my husband died, I requested donations to te nursing home.

In the south, we always send food when someone passes. When my father passed, we had more food than we could possibly eat. Froze some for mom to eat on later - lots of casseroles, soups, pies. Split up what we could into individual servings for her. We also received a lot of fruit, which we ate quickly. We really didn't want anything heavy nor did we have time to sit down and eat. We had to make arrangements, attend local visitation and local funeral, and then on the next day drove to his hometown for visitation, funeral and burial there. In the following days there was so much to do with handling legal matters of closing bank accounts, credit cards, etc. It was so nice to be able to grab an apple and some peanut butter or a handful of grapes.

I usually get a tray of cold cuts, cheese etc. from the deli, then buy paper products to go with it along with something to drink. Everyone usually appreciates that.

I think fruit is an excellent idea if there are going to be a lot of family to feed. My late mother used to take over a case of Coke and a roll of stamps when someone died. I always thought that was a good idea and not often duplicated.