https://www.glwd.org/about-us/gods-love-we-deliver-northern-dispensary/

God’s Love We Deliver @ Northern Dispensary

God’s Love We Deliver is expanding to the historic Northern Dispensary building in the West Village to continue its mission to “Heal the Sick.”

We are so excited to grow into this second space, The Northern Dispensary, in addition to our our beloved 6-story Michael Kors headquarters in SoHo.

God’s Love We Deliver got started 37 years ago, in 1985, at the height of the AIDS pandemic. At a time of great fear and stigma, we showed up; we were the only ones feeding people living with HIV. We applied all that we learned from those early, painful years, and now we serve people living with more than 200+ diagnoses, including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, renal failure, heart disease, advanced diabetes, and yes, HIV.

As COVID hit, we continued to show up, through another pandemic rife with fear and isolation. In the first weekend when everything in the City shut down, we received 3,500 phone calls for help. At its height, we had a 30% increase in demand. I am so proud of our staff and volunteers who stepped up to ensure that we were able to cook and package every day and never missed one delivery.

Over the past two years we have not rested on our laurels. We have not only survived, but we have thrived.

Last year, we cooked, packaged, and home-delivered more than 2.8 million meals, an agency record.

We continued to innovate. Just two examples – we launched Healthy Starts, a program addressing gestational diabetes, and Connected, a program providing food and nutrition for US military veterans living with mental health challenges.

As we have experienced this phenomenal growth, we have had to grow our staff to support the increased number of clients we serve – and that’s what brings us to Northern Dispensary.

Operating at the Northern Dispensary

God’s Love will use the Northern Dispensary to grow our program to serve New Yorkers living with severe and chronic illness. As we serve more clients, this expansion will give staff members more space to accomplish our work. For 37 years, God’s Love is proud to never have a waiting list, and this expansion for our staff will help us continue that mission.

It’s a fact: if every God’s Love staff member came back to our headquarters in the Michael Kors building, we would be more than 30 seats short. When we spoke to our Volunteer Leadership about this challenge, literally within one minute we heard from Marika Bender, a member of our Culinary Council. Marika said, “I have a solution for you.” And she did!

There are many wonderful aspects about this new space, including:

  1. its entirely unique triangular shape (no other building like it!)
  2. its historic presence in the West Village
  3. its mandate since its very beginning as a place to “Heal the Sick.”

We are dedicated to fulfilling this “Heal the Sick” mandate with our medically tailored meals and our belief that “food is medicine.”

Even though we are expanding the God’s Love footprint, some things will always stay the same.

The God’s Love move into Northern Dispensary will allow us to continue to meet our core values of:

  1. never having a waiting list
  2. never charging clients for their meals and
  3. always delivering a client’s first meal on the next delivery day.

Our program team – Nutrition Services, Client Services, and Healthcare Partners – will be in this special space, making that personal connection with our neighbors in need who depend on God’s Love for nourishment, hope, respect and love.

We thank Neil, Marika, and Elijah Bender, as well as William Gottlieb Real Estate for their generosity and for helping God’s Love feel at-home in this new space.

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