I had a great time volunteering, knowing I was doing something important for those in need and I had the pleasure of working with other volunteers I met for the first time. I enjoyed their company and guidance. The time went by rather quickly and we worked fantastic together. Two of the volunteers (Michael and Paul) I met have been doing this for some time on a consistent basis. I am glad I had the chance to meet them, they are both wonderful people. It was a fun atmosphere and look forward to the next time.

I've learned about GLWD from watching FoodTV network Chef Amanda Freitag on Chopped. I've volunteered in various capacities, since my teenage years in Gouverneur Hospital (84-87) then onto the NYPD Auxiliary Police(87-2011). In November 2017, I started out as a Van assistant, then switched to helping in the kitchen. I enjoy meeting fellow volunteers. Working with Chefs Curtis and Andre. The hands on experience, I'm gaining knowledge about food safety. I especially love working with folks from all walks of life. Thank you, GLWD for affording me the opportunity to serve others.

I've learned about GLWD from watching FoodTV network Chef Amanda Freitag on Chopped. I've volunteered in various capacities, since my teenage years in Gouverneur Hospital (84-87) then onto the NYPD Auxiliary Police(87-2011). In November 2017, I started out as a Van assistant, then switched to helping in the kitchen. I enjoy meeting fellow volunteers. Working with Chefs Curtis and Andre. The hands on experience, I'm gaining knowledge about food safety. I especially love working with folks from all walks of life. Thank you, GLWD for affording me the opportunity to serve others.

Life is full of difficult as well as accompanying celebratory moments. I have been a food prep volunteer at God's Love We Deliver for over 6 years. I honestly love the people that I share two hours with every week including those that I see and catch-up with weekly as well as those new faces who provide fresh interactions. I think of the role of food in both this "work" and in the gift that we are passing along to those in real need. I have been in NYC since the late 80s and still remember food playing an instrumental role in the early days of HIV. Several wonderful friends and I would gather in the lobby lounge of St. Vincent's Hospital, mostly on weekends, and we would bring doughnuts which we shared lovingly with family members of young men who were dying from a difficult-to-grasp disease. Many of these fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends had no experience in NYC and we wanted to comfort them given the unfamiliar, unique surroundings and the unforeseeable end to loved one's lives. Food was then, and can be now, a social salve to bring all of us together in difficult and celebratory moments.

I know how important your work is to to clients and for that I am forever grateful. My wife, Sherry, has been volunteering in the kitchen for over a year and for that I am also grateful to GLWD for making such an important contribution to her life.

GLWD has had a huge impact on my life. In 1994, I came to NYC and GLWD through a summer volunteer internship, at 19 years of age. I got to experience so many aspects of the organization, which I loved, like helping to produce the first AIDS service organization guide for NYC. I learned so many skills in the kitchen, that I still use today. I even got to represent GLWD volunteers in an MTV special. My favorite memory, though, was delivering meals and interacting with clients, particularly to those who were most alone, so many of them. I recall one young female client living in an SRO, whose prior days' meals had piled up, untouched, and she was extremely emaciated. She was also addicted to crack cocaine and using prostitution to survive and support her habit. I found a way to manage her meal delivery so that I could stop during my break and get her to eat with me. We became friends, and I was her only visitor in the hospital until she died shortly after her 30th birthday. The only regret she had, was that she wished she had been more honest in her life. I believe, in part, thanks to GLWD, we don't have these kinds of stories anymore. HIV transmission has decreased, the stigma is waning, and more love through nutrition is being spread to more people in need. I am still friends with and inspired by many of the staff I met there, over 20 years ago, including the amazing Pat Costello. I dream of getting involved again some day, given my passion for nutrition and neuroscience.

God's Love We Deliver is my happy place! Where else can you go to do good and feel like you benefited more when you walked out?

Four plus years of scooping, packing, cutting and scraping, of meeting wonderful people and making new friends, of making a difference. What more could you ask for? How about four more years? Love you guys.

I first heard about God's Love while volunteering with other NYU Alumni in the kitchen, food prepping on Sunday shift. The experience was so rewarding that I became a regular. Now I volunteer at least once a week helping with meal kit assembling and plan to commit more hours in the near future. Here is the picture of our NYU group, who is already scheduled to repeat the shift in a few weeks: https://www.facebook.com/NYURAN/photos/a.542234769138590.132369.256832281012175/1228262250535835/?type=3&theater

Being raised Italian, food has always equated love in our family. So to me, having to worry about food when dealing with an illness is an anxiety that I wish no one would ever have to deal with; which is why I've been a volunteer with GLWD for over 10 years. It's my hope that my small contribution helps GLWD make life a little easier for all those we serve.

I volunteered at GLWD a few weeks ago as a part of my company's community outreach. This was an amazing experience. I felt good giving back by chopping veggies, seasoning chicken, and helping the chefs in the kitchen. I will definitely give more time and encourage my colleagues to do the same. Thank you GLWD for reawakening my sense of community service and "giving back".

My Story is that I Volunteer on Thursdays between 4-6 and every time I wrap rolll or chop vegetables and put meat or vegetables into pack out I feel great. I am doing things for people that cannot help themselves and my two hours a week is helping so many people. The volunteers I work with also make it very special for me me. The people I work with KJ, Jana, Kate T.J. Tad, Chuck make me feel special and that makes me so grateful that my work is so appreciated.

I lived and worked in South Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer for two and a half years. While there, I worked really hard to create meals for myself based on very limited ingredients. After a while, I realized that there were members of my own community who weren't equipped with basic food-health knowledge. I am not a chef, but even as a lay person, I was able to discuss basic food pyramid premises. Over the years, I began creating healthy recipes for the community (many of whom were suffering from HIV/AIDS) using only the limited supply of ingredients available to us in the Kalahari desert, while also taking into account that the entire village was living in complete poverty. Flash forward a few years, and I saw Amanda Freitag competing for God's Love on Chopped, and I knew I had to get involved. I start my first day delivering food with God's Love on July 8th and could not be more excited!

My story is simple and maybe not unique, but to me it has never made me feel better. I sell pens so usually every Thursday I go to one of my customers store and sell my pens on the retail floor, then I finish and go to God's Love to help people that have no one to help them. I am a very lucky person I have great people in my life and most of all when I leave God's Love I fell like nothing can get me down. I must say that all of the workers K.J. our boss in the kitchen is great, Mr Brownie as I call him and everybody else is warm and friendly and you have no idea how that makes me feel. T.J., Jana, Kate they are so warm and friendly. I work with a lot of companies and no body has a staff like God;s Love. I said my peace and I am smiling now. Sara J Grodensky

I've been a kitchen volunteer at GLWD for around 10 years now. Although people have come and gone from the kitchen over the years, whenever I meet a God's Love volunteer there is always a common denomenator: people care. It is such a good feeling to be in the kitchen surrounded by others taking the time out of their daily routines to do something for someone else. It is not often in our lives outside the kitchen to encounter such kindness.

My friend, Alicia Rodriguez, has been working in your kitchens for a while and suggested that I join her. Last week was my first time and I found it so satisfing that I was pleased to return this week, and look forward to continuing my volunteer work. I am incredibly impressed with the staff and the volunteers are so nice.

Hi!! My vision for my community is to live in a world where there is abundance, where everyone eats, where everyone smiles, and where joy, love, and compassion are always present. By volunterring and being in contribution to God's Love, We Deliver, I am living in my vision!

I’ve been volunteering at God’s Love We Deliver on and off since 1996. And in that time, I have definitely gotten more out of being there than I have given. I first joined after my husband and I separated and I found myself with more tears and free time than I knew what to do with. I was a bit shy my first Thursday night in the kitchen, but I quickly felt a part of something really good. The people I met and became friendly with during those years may never know how much those Thursday night talks around the table chopping carrots, onions, and potatoes meant to me. Work and life got busier so I wasn’t able to devote my time to GD for a number of years. Then last year I found myself on the other end of GLWD services. I was the caregiver for my mother who was in the latter stages of stage IV lung cancer. It was an extremely stressful time made a bit less so when Mom began receiving meals from God’s Love. The meals were designed with Mom’s special dietary needs and seeing the delivery person’s smile helped remind me how lucky I was to once be a part of this great organization. Mom passed away in October 2011 and of course I came back to God’s Love as a Thursday night volunteer. I want to honor her by giving back to this wonderful organization that was there when I needed them; and I hope my small part as a volunteer can somehow help others.

I vividly remember the first day I walked into God’s Love after a seriously lengthy hiatus...As soon as the elevator doors opened to the basement kitchen and I wrapped the apron around my waist, I recognized how much I really missed this place. The people you meet, the conversations you have while working, the connections you make are literally indescribable. A melting pot of New Yorkers working together to improve the lives of fellow New Yorkers, its inspiring....I will sing the praises of Gods Love all over this world; it is a magical place where people selflessly donate their time, energy and money to helping others. Every night we hear how many meals are being delivered the next day and the figures always astound me…. 1800, 1600, you get the idea…. My love for GLWD knows no end; I look forward to celebrating many life moments downstairs in the kitchen. (Editor's Note: You can read the entire entry on the Sept. 29, 2010 entry at http://mmmguide.com/)

Thank you so much for allowing us to spend the week with you and learn about your amazing work and the clients you serve. Everyone at God's Love was so friendly and helpful. It was a meaningful experience for each of us. We are going to work hard to spread the message of God's Love and help as much as possible from campus. Thank you!!

I first came to God's Love in late 2008 as I wanted to do something significant to honor a dear friend who lost his battle to AIDS. I have found a great deal of satisfaction volunteering alongside other New Yorkers who are active within their various communities and share a genuine concern for others. Until coming to God's Love, I was never very skilled when it came kitchen related activities. I am now an expert carrot and celery chopper. Most of all, I am content to know that I am able to be part of an organization that provides love, care and soulful nourishment for those who need it.

I volunteer at God’s Love because it’s a chance to be in the kitchen, surrounded by terrific people, as part of a shared outreach to the people in our own neighborhoods who really need it. From day one I felt welcomed, both by the God’s Love staff and by the other volunteers. Working in the kitchen is a break from the demands of real life, a time when you’re not worrying about work, or thinking about the housework waiting at home. You can lose yourself in the rhythm and concentration of soup-chopping carrots. You can laugh yourself silly listening to your compatriots tell stories from their week (how is it that all of the volunteers are such warm, fabulous people?). It feels good to come to a place of such giving every Wednesday night. On some level, I feel that the positive energy that we generate in coming together comes through in the food. It feels personal. Preparing a meal for someone, especially a person struggling with illness, is to me the epitome of caring and healing. It's a nice thing to have in your week.

From all of us at the St. Michael's College MOVE Office - thank you so much for hosting our students again this year. We are constantly inspired by all that God's Love does and look forward to our continued partnership.