Dear Friends,

It is with great admiration and appreciation that we celebrate our volunteers this National Volunteer Week! God’s Love We Deliver is powered by the hands and hearts of more than 13,000 volunteers and 440 corporate, student, and community groups who power our mission every day. Thank you for helping us continue to always serve our neighbors. We say it all the time, but we simply couldn’t do this work without you.

Volunteerism has been at the heart of God’s Love since our beginning in 1985. After delivering her first meal to a man dying of AIDS, our founder, Ganga Stone immediately turned to others to help meet the desperate need. In most cases, Ganga did not even need to ask, as volunteers who wanted so urgently to do something to support those living with and dying from HIV/AIDS came forth. Over time, the work shifted and grew, but their intention remained the same: Service is joy, just like Ganga always said.

Our volunteers delivered meals from donor restaurants, and then those who first cooked in our tiny church kitchen on the Upper West Side, and then countless others who helped God’s Love nourish and grow. In the nearly 40 years since our founding, we have had the honor of working with hundreds of thousands of volunteers who help us in every department and get us to where we are today as we continue to expand our reach across our communities.

Before this role, I first came to God’s Love as a volunteer myself. It’s hard to believe that was 25 years ago, and look where we are now! Without you, we wouldn’t be able to cook and deliver 3.4 million meals this year to people living with serious and chronic disease. So again, thanks for all that you do, whether it’s volunteering in the kitchen or meal packaging, delivery, or just helping spread the word about us.

Together with our staff, our volunteers help us accomplish the below, and so much more each year:

• Cook and deliver more than 3.4 million meals
• Decorate 7,500 birthday cakes
• Home-deliver nearly 13,000 meals each weekday
• Fill our new emergency response delivery shifts, making lunchtime deliveries by car in Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan
• Complete thousands of volunteer projects from regular weekly shifts to special holiday shifts, shelf-stable meal pack out shifts, and more

On behalf of all of us at God’s Love We Deliver, but most especially the 11,000 New Yorkers we will serve this year, thank you today, and every day.

Thank you for your continued support!

 

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