Georgia Woman Throws 'Fill Your Freezer' Parties for Busy Moms — and Is Shocked by the Response (Exclusive)

Martha Marshall found a way to have fun with her friends and serve her family delicious meals on their busiest days

One mom's creative solution to getting more time with her friends and still staying on top of her family's needs is going viral and inspiring moms.

Martha Marshall began sharing her Fill Your Freezer parties in 2022, explaining it was a natural progression of her existing meal prep at that time.

"I've been meal prepping with freezer meals since I was pregnant with my oldest and he's 11. So I've been doing it for pretty much my entire marriage, 12 years," she tells PEOPLE. "I got out of the habit of doing it for a while and so about two years ago, I asked my best friend if she'd have any interest in doing meal prep with me because we both had really busy lives."

"She was like, 'Yes, absolutely. But we should probably ask the rest of our friend group if they want to as well so we could share even more.' "

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After reaching out to their friends, they found a few more people who were interested. The larger group dwindled once dietary preferences and needs were taken into consideration.

"So I posted to my Facebook asking if other people wanted to join in on a non-dietary specific meal prep," she shares.

"The last few years, we've got a core group of about six of us that come every time, but we end up with eight to 12 girls every time when you count the ones that are in and out. It's pretty cool."

Martha says the Fill Your Freezer parties have been "a blessing" because it can be hard on busy moms to keep up otherwise.

"Sometimes motherhood sucks," she says with a laugh. "Sometimes it's too busy and it's nice to not have to worry about dinner."

When it comes to recipes, the group is open to "tweaking everything to fit [their] family's needs."

"Whether that's adjusting them to be frozen or changing the protein or the spices or whatever, it's easy to make it work for what our families like."

In her years of crockpot cooking, Martha has collected a lot of recipes, both physically and online. These days, she keeps them in a spreadsheet to make it easier to propose different possibilities to her group.

"I have a whole system in place where about a month before the next party, I will check what dates work for everybody. We'll vote on which one has the most availability and set it for that day. I'll ask if anybody has specific recipes they want to do or a style of recipes that we're looking for," she explains.

"A lot of times, when we're leaning towards summer, people like the lighter things that they can do in the crock pot. Or if it's winter, it's soup season, pretty much exclusively. It just kind of depends on what people are in the mood for."

After rounds of voting on recipes where everyone gets five votes, they pick the top six recipes. From there, Martha places grocery orders to "gather all that stuff up the day before the party."

"I set all the dry goods up on my dining table. Thankfully, I have two fridges and three freezers," she says. "Then I will print out and laminate the recipes that we're going to do. I draw little things on my recipes because I have fun doodling and being extra."

The simple system takes some preplanning, but Martha says her group has "gotten into a nice flow where we set things up based on each recipe."

When it comes to divvying the price and the responsibilities, everyone is a good sport.

"Some people have designated jobs they pick up. My friend, Andrea, for example, we joked with her that she has iron eyes. She's the only one of us that doesn't just start falling apart doing onions so she's our resident onion chopper."

Last one to arrive scores raw meat duty, with Martha joking, "There's always an incentive to be on time."

Martha also likes to surprise her guests with extra goodies. She supplies Crockpot liners at every event, plus a cute little something that sometimes matches the month's theme.

"I made us all matching aprons one time, which was really fun," she says. "I'm also thinking about sweatshirts and some more aprons that play on the various different jobs, like onion chopper and meat lady."

Martha has been documenting these get-togethers on TikTok, where it's been "crazy" seeing how many people are interested in getting in on the fun.

"They just keep getting bigger and bigger, which is crazy because I just thought it was a neat idea. What happened is that all of my friends toy around on TikTok. None of us do it as a job or anything, but it fell into place that we were all just like, 'Let's make a fun TikTok about it,' and it blew up."

At the same time, she's not surprised because, "if I saw that on TikTok, I would absolutely be jumping on that myself as well if I hadn't come up with it."

"It's so fun and it's a great excuse to get together. I feel like one of the things that a lot of moms, myself included, really suffer from is the mom guilt of taking time away from your kids or your family to go hang out with your own friends," she notes.

"Obviously, you need some of that balance. But what I love about this is, I don't feel any mom guilt over this because I am providing meals for my family. I get a ton of socialization with my girlfriends and I just feel incredibly productive at the same time. It's that perfect mix because we're truly doing a service to our families and getting to enjoy each other's company at the same time."

Martha is looking forward to bringing back prep lives where she can engage with TikTok followers "the way I do with my friends and our Facebook group planning them."

"I think it's really nice to see a lot of other moms into it. The one thing that I always get a little bit sad by in my comments are all the people saying, 'Oh, I wish I had friends, I need friends so that I could do this.' "

She continues, "That's why I really wanted to get the prep along series going because at least that way, you have one person that you can prep along with. I'll be your friend, even if it's just online."

"Being a mom can be so isolating sometimes, so it's nice to have a reason to reach out and connect with people that way. It's not something I'd ever thought a social media platform would bring into my life, but I'm not mad about it."

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