About
E-Mealz Founder, Jane DeLaney, with her husband and
four children.Jane DeLaney, founder of maketimeforfamily.org and E-Mealz, is a mother of four children and the wife of an associate pastor. She grew up as the third of five in a preacher's family, living in the church parsonage. Many wonderful memories grew out of the shared experience of family dinner for Jane, but she found that her life was drastically different from her mother's life.
Jane's inspiration for E-Mealz grew out of her frustration with the difficulty of pulling off dinner for her own family. She says that she felt one week would be semi-sane with "a scribbled down meal plan on napkin lost in the bottom of my purse," and then the next would be sheer chaos. But she was committed to making her family life ordered around an evening meal where everyone could decompress and come face to face with each other.
Jane's search convinced her that all she needed was a simple system to uncomplicate getting the family around the table enjoying a delicious and kid-friendly meal. Jane became intentional in finding that tool for her family, remembering that her Mom fed her large family well on a very small grocery budget with a weekly meal plan of her own creation. In looking for a system on-line that would eliminate the hours and hours of work meal planning requires, Jane found that all of these services were either oblivious to her budget, required using coupons, did not have a consolidated grocery list, had lengthy and complicated instructions, or had recipes that her kids boycotted. She couldn't find any weekly plan coordinated with her grocery store's current sales to maximize her grocery budget.
Jenny Cochran, Jane's sister and E-Mealz co-creator, with her
husband and three daughters.
In 2003, Jane began the arduous process of creating a unique meal planning service that could incorporate all the components she was looking for into a "simple and good" system. Her sister, Jenny Cochran, came alongside Jane and the two gathered an amazing and talented team of meal planners and writers - all wonderful family cooks. Jenny is also a pastor's wife, the mother of three children, and most importantly - a fabulous cook. (Now, the on-site food critics are sixteen picky eaters between the ages of 8 - 18, all of whom have become much more adventurous in their eating because they know to expect delicious meals on the table.) Jane and Jenny share a vision for inspiring other families to connect at dinnertime, strengthening that crucial bond and making a simple tool available to them. E-Mealz is just that… a practical tool and a means to an end.
The ultimate goal of E-Mealz and their core belief is reflected in their organization, Make Time For Family (maketimeforfamily.org), through which they are booked for speaking engagements and publish articles. Jane and Jenny have found that parents fall into two categories:
1) Those who did not grow up with family dinnertime and therefore don't have a vision for what it can be, or
2) Those who did grow up with family dinnertime, but since current lifestyles are so busy and fragmented, struggle to duplicate their childhood experience and pull it off for their own families.
Our goal through maketimeforfamily.org is to inspire women and men with a vision to do something transcendent in their family's life.
"Our dinnertime at home today parallels to the city gates of the Old Testament where the events of the day were discussed and where the old taught the young. Families as a whole join together to bond, interact and relate to each other. Reality is that the #1 way families come together is at dinnertime. It goes without saying that if your family is not having dinner together, your family is not connecting on a regular basis." Fran Shaicca, Founder, Hands of Hur
Now thousands of family cooks have been given the practical help they need to end the struggle to pull off dinner in the midst of all their responsibilities through E-MEALZ. They have found that it is budget-minded meal planning system with easy to follow (or delegate) shopping lists and recipes. The instructions are simple and the plan is easy to customize to any family. This is a tool that has helped Jane and all the other families of the E-Mealz team to connect and communicate in a meaningful way around the dinner table without the stress they all use to experience on a regular basis.
Read more about Jane's true inspiration for E-Mealz - her Mom!
"The Love of God"
Read how dinnertime has been a huge influence in Jane's life:
"My Sunday Best"
Read how dinnertime affects Jane's family today:
"A Calm in the Storm"
E-Mealz Founder, Jane DeLaney, with her husband and
four children.
Jane's inspiration for E-Mealz grew out of her frustration with the difficulty of pulling off dinner for her own family. She says that she felt one week would be semi-sane with "a scribbled down meal plan on napkin lost in the bottom of my purse," and then the next would be sheer chaos. But she was committed to making her family life ordered around an evening meal where everyone could decompress and come face to face with each other.
Jane's search convinced her that all she needed was a simple system to uncomplicate getting the family around the table enjoying a delicious and kid-friendly meal. Jane became intentional in finding that tool for her family, remembering that her Mom fed her large family well on a very small grocery budget with a weekly meal plan of her own creation. In looking for a system on-line that would eliminate the hours and hours of work meal planning requires, Jane found that all of these services were either oblivious to her budget, required using coupons, did not have a consolidated grocery list, had lengthy and complicated instructions, or had recipes that her kids boycotted. She couldn't find any weekly plan coordinated with her grocery store's current sales to maximize her grocery budget.
Jenny Cochran, Jane's sister and E-Mealz co-creator, with her
husband and three daughters.
The ultimate goal of E-Mealz and their core belief is reflected in their organization, Make Time For Family (maketimeforfamily.org), through which they are booked for speaking engagements and publish articles. Jane and Jenny have found that parents fall into two categories:
1) Those who did not grow up with family dinnertime and therefore don't have a vision for what it can be, or
2) Those who did grow up with family dinnertime, but since current lifestyles are so busy and fragmented, struggle to duplicate their childhood experience and pull it off for their own families.
Our goal through maketimeforfamily.org is to inspire women and men with a vision to do something transcendent in their family's life.
"Our dinnertime at home today parallels to the city gates of the Old Testament where the events of the day were discussed and where the old taught the young. Families as a whole join together to bond, interact and relate to each other. Reality is that the #1 way families come together is at dinnertime. It goes without saying that if your family is not having dinner together, your family is not connecting on a regular basis." Fran Shaicca, Founder, Hands of Hur
Now thousands of family cooks have been given the practical help they need to end the struggle to pull off dinner in the midst of all their responsibilities through E-MEALZ. They have found that it is budget-minded meal planning system with easy to follow (or delegate) shopping lists and recipes. The instructions are simple and the plan is easy to customize to any family. This is a tool that has helped Jane and all the other families of the E-Mealz team to connect and communicate in a meaningful way around the dinner table without the stress they all use to experience on a regular basis.
Read more about Jane's true inspiration for E-Mealz - her Mom!
"The Love of God"
Read how dinnertime has been a huge influence in Jane's life:
"My Sunday Best"
Read how dinnertime affects Jane's family today:
"A Calm in the Storm"