Mercy James, Christopher Jackson, Councilmember Carlina Rivera, with staff and volunteers

11.30.24
/ Events

Our Record-Breaking 2024 Thanksgiving

By Emmett Findley, Director of Marketing & Communications

THANK YOU!

Thanks to you, yesterday was our largest Thanksgiving at God’s Love We Deliver, as we cooked and home-delivered more than 15,000 Thanksgiving feasts to our clients, their families, and their guests! All the hard work and months of planning, weeks of prepping, and days of cooking paid off, as more than 1,100 volunteers delivered these delicious feasts right to our clients’ doors. Thank you for making Thanksgiving so special.

Director of Volunteer Services Yolanda Deceus with Fulfillment Lead Jason Cruz and our Thanksgiving meal

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

Chef Ryan with our Heermance Farm Brussels sprouts delivery

We were thrilled to keep the love close to home by cooking 1,000 pounds of Brussels sprouts donated by Heermance Farm upstate.

Char de Francesco, Fulfillment coordinator Daquan Thomas, and Marc Jacobs

Church of the Holy Apostles, Brooklyn

Board member Dr. Erich Anderer and family at Industry City

We welcomed delivery volunteers to fourteen distribution centers across the boroughs, including Industry City and, new this year, The Church of Holy Apostles in Brooklyn.

Swipe

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And while we are thrilled to bring so much love to all of our clients, we also extended love this week to our neighbors in other communities, including delivering forty turkey feasts to our friends at The Ali Forney Center.

We also delivered a special holiday meal to a shelter for unaccompanied minors –children who have been detained by immigration without their parents. The shelter cares for the children while simultaneously searching for family in the United States the children can be reunited with. These children are often fleeing community violence, poverty, or abusive situations.

This is our sixth year providing this special meal, and we were asked once again to deliver treats that “taste like home”. With dishes like Pupusa de Queso (Cheese Pupusa); Pepian de Pollo (Chicken Stew); Arroz (Rice); Tres Leches (Three Milk Cake); Galleta de la Abuela (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.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera (R) with Christopher Jackson, Board of Trustees member James Palazza, and Ivy Getty

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 welcomed Councilmember Alexa Aviles, CD-38, State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, SD-47, Staff of Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine’s office, Councilmember Carlina Rivera, CD-2, Congressman Dan Goldman, NY-10, and Assemblymember Tony Simone.

Our Volunteer Leadership members volunteered on multiple projects, too! Thank you to Culinary Council members Natasha Pickowicz and Marika Bender; God’s Love Board members Erich Anderer, Jonathan Railoa, Karen Naber, Melba Wilson; Trustee members James Palazza, Vicente Wolf and Jaclyn Dooner; genLOVE Executive Committee members Dimitri Moise and Maura O’Neill for your tremendous support.

Volunteers with our client gift tote

Our 2024 Thanksgiving celebration was made possible by Bruce Halpryn & Chas Riebe; Kristel & Rob Lazarus; Price Jepsen & Dean Lewallen; Cris & Bruce Jaffe; Brian Hotaling; Annie Chan in loving memory of Ying Chan; Joanne & David Rodgers; Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation; The Krumholz Foundation; Binn Family Foundation In loving memory of Penny Binn Binstock; L’Oréal USA & Out@L’Oréal; Fekkai & Bastide; Stewart Lantner, DDS & Joseph Goldberg, DDS; Bloomberg L.P.; Bombas; Heermance Farm; Take9; Zabar’s.