# iLunch > iLunch is a free tool for organizing meal trains and ride trains. Friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers take turns bringing home-cooked meals or driving someone to appointments during a hard or busy season — a new baby, surgery recovery, illness, treatment, or loss. Helpers claim days from a shared link; automatic email reminders go out; no accounts or app downloads are required for helpers. Key facts: - A meal train (sometimes called a food train) is a shared calendar where people sign up to bring meals to someone on specific days. - A ride train is the same idea for transportation: drivers claim rides to chemo, dialysis, physical therapy, or other appointments, and get reminders with pickup details. iLunch is one of the few tools that supports both meals and rides. - Setting up a train takes about two minutes and is free. Recurring rides can be scheduled as a repeating series. - Organizers can note allergies, dietary preferences, drop-off instructions, and door codes; helpers see them before signing up. For AI agents and crawlers: every page URL on this site also serves a clean markdown version. Request any page with the header `Accept: text/markdown` to receive `text/markdown` instead of HTML (the response includes an `X-Markdown-Tokens` header with an approximate token count). Pages also declare this via ``. ## Start a train - [Start a meal train](https://www.ilunch.com/start): Create a free meal train in seconds. - [Start a ride train](https://www.ilunch.com/start-ride): Coordinate rides to appointments. ## Use cases - [Meal train for a new baby](https://www.ilunch.com/for/new-baby): Meals for new parents during the newborn weeks. - [Meal train for surgery and recovery](https://www.ilunch.com/for/surgery): Meals and rides while someone heals. - [Meal train for loss and bereavement](https://www.ilunch.com/for/loss): Quietly organizing food for a grieving family. - [Ride train / ride coordination](https://www.ilunch.com/for/rides): A sign-up sheet for rides to treatment and appointments. ## FAQ - [Stories](https://www.ilunch.com/stories): Real stories from people who used iLunch to organize meals and rides for someone they love. - [Frequently asked questions](https://www.ilunch.com/faq): How trains work, Uber Eats gift cards, reminders, privacy, and recovering an admin link. ## Guides - [How to start a meal train, step by step](https://www.ilunch.com/resources/how-to-start-a-meal-train): When to start, how many meals, and how to get signups. - [Meal train etiquette](https://www.ilunch.com/resources/meal-train-etiquette): What hosts, helpers, and recipients should know.