First 48 Hours Coordinator Checklist

How to use this page

You don't need all of it. The job is smaller than it feels: catch the offers, shield the family, think past the weekend. Check things off as you go (nothing is stored — the checks reset when you reload), and print a copy for your co-coordinator, because this job is better with two.

Prints as a compact handout — checkboxes print as boxes. No analytics, no network requests, nothing stored; it works offline. If the news is grief or a mental-health crisis, pair this with the Sitting-With Guide — logistics keep the house running; someone still has to sit with the person.

Hour one: get the job officially

Ask for the job out loud. One text to the family (copy-ready below): "Can everyone come through me?" A coordinator with permission can actually say "no visitors today" — and have it stick.
Find the one decision-maker in the house — the person who can answer questions. The family should answer one person, not forty.
Collect the five facts once: address and where food goes; allergies and dietary needs; the best drop-off window; pets and their needs; kids and their schedule. Post the answers where helpers can see them — and never make the family repeat them.
Ask what's off-limits: Are visitors okay? Phone calls? Which details are private? Write the privacy rules down before the first well-meaning post goes up.
Start your own list: every offer, every volunteer, every job and its day. Your memory is not a system.

Hour two: set up the hub

Pick one place where offers land — a meal-train site, a shared spreadsheet, or one group chat. One place, not five scattered threads.
Post the five facts there: drop-off instructions, dietary needs, the cooler on the porch, "no need to knock."
Convert "let me know if you need anything" into a menu of jobs: dog walks Tuesday, school pickup Thursday, the pharmacy run, the lawn Saturday, airport pickup for the sister flying in. People genuinely want to help; they need a job with a day attached.
Give every volunteer one specific slot. Vague offers get a job or get thanked and parked — warmly, but parked.
Keep one slot per need. The goal is coverage, not a casserole pileup.

Food rules (they prevent the pileup)

Schedule meals on a calendar. Day two gets eight offers and day nine gets zero — spread them across two weeks, one a day at most.
Disposable containers only, labeled with contents, date, and reheating instructions. Nobody in a crisis should be tracking whose dish is whose.
Put a cooler on the porch with ice packs so drop-offs don't ring the bell: "Leave it in the cooler between 4 and 6 — no need to knock."
Cover breakfast and lunch too. Help that only thinks about dinner leaves two meals a day unhelped.
Send freezer-sized portions. The fridge fills on day one; the freezer is what feeds week three.
Do one staples run nobody thinks of: milk, bread, coffee, eggs, toilet paper, paper towels, trash bags.

The unglamorous essentials

Pets: walked, fed, litter changed — or boarded for a few days if the house is chaos.
Kids: school drop-offs and pickups covered, and one adult whose job is "the kids" — what they've been told, who's telling the school, where they sleep if the family is at the hospital.
The door and the phone: one person screening, so the family doesn't have to receive anyone or narrate anything.
The house keeps happening: trash day, mail, plants, the lawn. Put them on the job menu.
Out-of-town family: airport pickups, beds, towels, a house-key plan.
If it's a death or a diagnosis: who goes to appointments and meetings with them, who drives, who takes notes. Big decisions should never be heard alone.

Shield the family

Route every logistics question to you. Their job is the crisis; yours is the casserole schedule. Bring them only the questions that truly need them.
Gate the visitors: nobody drops by unannounced; visits get scheduled; "they're resting" is a complete answer.
Nothing goes on social media without explicit permission — not the sign-up link, not the diagnosis, not the hospital. Grief should never learn its own news from a feed.
Helpers don't get access as a reward for a casserole. Run interference kindly on the ones who want closeness as payment.
Guard their one job: if they're up for visitors, keep it to one or two at a time. They are not hosting. Nobody gets entertained.

The week-three problem (your real job)

Today, put reminders in your calendar for weeks 2, 3, 4, and 6. The crowd disappears after day five; the freezer empties around week two; the loneliness peaks weeks three to six.
Keep two meal slots a week going after the first wave, even when sign-ups slow. Assign them if you have to — people are glad to be handed a slot.
Recruit a co-coordinator now for the long tail. This job is a marathon wearing a sprint's clothes.
Mark the ambush days ahead: the first birthday after, the first holiday, the anniversary. Schedule help for those too.
Tell the family the plan out loud: "We're not stopping. Dinner keeps coming Tuesdays and Fridays." Knowing it's coming is half the comfort.

Money, if it comes up

Only if the family asks or clearly agrees. Never start a fund as a surprise — a surprise fundraiser can cost them privacy and pride at the worst possible moment.
One fund, one plainly stated purpose ("rent and groceries while she's in treatment"), one person managing it, and updates for the donors.
Underrated: gift cards for gas and groceries — usable without decisions, and nobody has a dish to return.

Take care of the coordinator (you)

Share the role. Two coordinators means the help survives your own bad week.
You're allowed to be wrecked too — you knew the same people. Tend your own grief or you'll burn out in week one, exactly when you're needed most.
Done beats perfect: a slightly chaotic meal train that starts today beats a flawless one that starts next week.
Ask for help with the helping. "I need someone to own the school-pickup column" is a sentence you're allowed to say.

Two copy-ready messages

To the family — asking for the job

I want to take every piece of logistics off your plate — the meals, the offers, the "what can I do?" texts. Can everyone come through me? I'll only bring you the questions that actually need you. You don't need to reply to this — I'll get it set up, and you can take it back whenever you want.

To the volunteers — converting vague offers into jobs

Thank you for offering — it genuinely matters. Here's how to turn it into help: [sign-up link]. Open jobs right now: Tuesday dog walks, Thursday school pickup, Saturday lawn. Food goes in the cooler on the porch between 4 and 6, no need to knock — disposable containers only, labeled with what's inside and the date. And the best thing you can do: take a slot in week three, when everyone else has gone home.

Replace the [sign-up link] and the job list with your real ones before sending.