Cohousing-L Mailing List: helping neighbors share common meals if they can't afford to pay

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

One of our caring teams brought a request to a team I am on that is
responsible for managing common meals. They asked us to create a fund that
would allow our neighbors who are in a financial bind to still come to
common meals - we charge per meal to those who sign up for each meal,
billed monthly. Billing and payment are handled by the Meals Accountant.
The Meals Account is a separate bank account.

My team met about this last night and agreed that we would like to do this.
We were wondering how to administer it in a way that would be kind,
confidential, and not too much of a PITA for the Meals Accountant to deal
with.

Do any of your communities do this? If so, how do you handle it? Is it an
ongoing situation for the person in need until they let someone know they
don't need it, or on a meal-by-meal request basis, or what? How do you fund
it? How much use does it get? Do you do anything in particular to maintain
confidentiality? Anything else that I should know?

I will greatly appreciate any practical voice-of-experience responses!
  Muriel @ Shadowlake Village, Blacksburg VA