15,000 Thanksgiving Feasts – An Amazing Feat!

Thanks to you, after months of planning, weeks of prepping, and days of cooking, we cooked and home-delivered 15,000 Thanksgiving feasts for our clients, our largest feat yet! 

Our menu was extremely special this year! Our menu sought to nourish and delight! This year’s delicious Thanksgiving meal included: Smoky Braised Winter Squash Soup, Roasted Turkey Breast with Gravy, Cornbread Stuffing, Sweet Potato Mash, Parsnips, Brussels Sprouts, Carrots, Pearl Onions, Apple Cranberry Sauce, and Crustless Pumpkin Pie with Graham Cracker Crumble.

We kept the love growing close to home with each meal containing sustainable, organic ingredients. A special thank you to Heermance Farm for donating more than 5,000 pounds of vegetables for our Thanksgiving feasts! 

This year, our Thanksgiving deliveries were up 25% compared to 2022. Thanks to our #CelebrateWithAPlate campaign, we were once again able to deliver our clients’ families, caregivers, and guest meals as well so that no one had to spend the holiday alone.   

We thank our neighborhood distribution centers, like Industry City in Brooklyn and the Blessed Sacrament Church in Manhattan, for so generously providing us with their space from which we should distribute our meals to volunteers. 

 Thanksgiving is a special time to volunteer in the kitchen at God’s Love We Deliver. We are lucky that our elected officials join us year-over-year to help prepare meals for their constituents. This year we were welcomed Councilmembers Crystal Hudson, Carlina Rivera, Keith Powers; State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal; Assemblymember Tony Simone; Congressman Dan Goldman, and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.

Our Volunteer Leadership members volunteered on multiple projects, too! Thank you to Culinary Council members Amanda Freitag, Lauren Radel, Mavis-Jay Sanders, and David Burtka; God’s Love Board members Erich Anderer, Jonathan Railoa, Jens Audenaert, Alfredo Paredes, David Terveen, Karen Naber, Trupti Patel; Trustee members James Palazza, Sylvia Vogelman; genLOVE Executive Committee Chair Jonathan Lau for your tremendous support.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Michael Kors (@michaelkors)

We delivered a special holiday meal to a shelter for unaccompanied minors –children who have been detained by immigration without their parents who are often fleeing violence. 

This is our fourth year providing this special meal, and we were asked once again to deliver treats that “taste like home.” With dishes like Pupusa de Cerdo (Pork Pepusa); Pepian de Pollo (Chicken Stew); Arroz con Frijoles (Rice and Beans); Tres Leches (Three Milk Cake); and Gaelleta de la Abuella (Grandma’s Cookie), we were proud to have brought a little bit of home – and a lot of love – to these children during the holiday season. 

Watch our meals come to life in our reel below.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by God’s Love We Deliver (@godslovenyc)

You helped give our clients so much today. Our clients received full turkey dinners and sweet pumpkin crisps. They received holiday gift totes with snacks, a dental care kit, and a personal care bag.

Our 2023 Thanksgiving Celebration was generously sponsored by: Bruce Halpryn and Chas Riebe; Cris and Bruce Jaffe; Javier Morgado; Annie Chan, in loving memory of Ying Chan; Price Jepsen and Dean Lewallen; Carol Alexander; Luis Guerra and Florence Peyrelongue; The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation; The Krumholz Foundation; the Binn Family Foundation in loving memory of Penny Binstock; L’Oréal USA and OUT@L’Oréal; Stewart Lantner, DDS & Joseph Goldberg, DDS; Bombas