https://www.glwd.org/home/covid-19/

Our Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

God’s Love We Deliver cooks and home-delivers delicious, medically tailored meals to New Yorkers living with severe and chronic illness. We also provide unlimited nutrition education and counseling. All meals are provided free to clients and full of love.

Cooking and home-delivering medically tailored meals to some of the most vulnerable people in NYC is more important than ever during this unprecedented COVID-19 crisis. As all of our clients are living with underlying conditions, making them the most at-risk individuals, and the majority are elderly, our home-delivered meals are critical to their well-being.

Here's How We Responded to the Crisis in 2020-2021

  • We were deemed an Essential Services Provider
  • We continued operations without disruption
  • All non-essential staff transitioned to working remotely
  • In the early days of the pandemic, we cooked and delivered extra high-protein soups for clients to keep in their freezers
  • We delivered 310,000 shelf-stable meals
  • We are now cooking and home-delivering more than 10,000 meals each weekday
  • At the height of the pandemic, we experienced a 30% increase in demand and welcomed thousands of individuals to our program
  • From Spring 2020 to Spring 2021 we delivered 10,000 personal care kits which included toothbrushes, toothpaste, hand soap, body wash and deodorant
  • We created an Eligibility Screener for referring clients and their families to streamline the application and onboarding process
  • We instituted no-contact delivery protocols and added health screenings for staff and volunteers and mask wearing for all constituents to keep clients, staff, and volunteers safe
  • We reduced the number of volunteers to meet social distancing requirements, all while increasing our daily meal production

Changing with the Tides and Continuing to Respond to COVID-19

God’s Love We Deliver has never stopped working through the continued challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the early days, we adapted rapidly to meet increased demand while instituting social distancing measures that decreased volunteer and staff capacity. In this new pandemic, we have drawn from our legacy of caring for those who are isolated and
alone, too sick to shop or cook for themselves, to respond to COVID-19 and build an even stronger community and city.

God’s Love, along with other medically tailored meal organizations, were essential in meeting the crisis of food insecurity that resulted from necessary social distancing policies and inevitable economic disruption. Reliable and safe home delivery is more important than ever: our food helps reduce hospital admission for people who are especially vulnerable to the most dire outcomes of this virus. We remain committed to the safety of every volunteer, staff member, client and family member in our reach as we continue to navigate the ongoing changes of life during COVID-19.

As of this writing, the infection rate is on the rise again all over New York City. We continue to be there for our vulnerable neighbors, including so many who are isolated from their family and caregivers due to the need for social distancing. Our Human Resources Department keeps staff and volunteers informed on the latest COVID-19 safety protocols to ensure
everyone entering our building is safe. Staff and volunteers are always required to wear masks while in the building. For Thanksgiving, we maintained all safety protocols to ensure clients, volunteers, supporters and staff remained safe and socially distanced at all meal distribution centers and during delivery. We have held many of of our events virtually, to ensure attendees could participate while also staying safe. Many things have changed since March 2020, but at God’s Love the most important thing has not: we continue to enroll
clients in our program of home-delivered, medically tailored meals and unlimited nutrition education and counseling, and we cook and deliver all meals with lots of love. We were able to rise to the occasion because of compassionate donors and supporters like you.

Hear from our Clients During COVID-19

Want to help?

Donate

Every $10 helps fund a meal for a neighbor in need. With demand for our services up 30% since the pandemic began, every dollar makes a difference!

Donate to our COVID-19 Emergency Fund.
Start your own fundraiser and get your friends and family in on your fundraising efforts to support God’s Love.
Join our Kitchen Table, a dedicated group of monthly donors who support our mission–so all our neighbors living with illness can be fed.

Volunteer

God’s Love has been deemed an Essential Service Provider in New York City and will continue working to cook, package, and deliver delicious, medically tailored meals to our neighbors living with severe and chronic illness during the COVID-19 crisis. We need your help in so many ways:

Help us cook in the kitchen
Pack out meals in meal kit assembly
Help deliver: by walking deliveries, emergency meal deliveries, or van assisting

Become a Client

We know fresh, healthy meals can make all the difference in the world if you or someone you love is living with a chronic or life-altering illness like cancer, Alzheimer’s, renal failure, COPD, HIV/AIDS, or other serious condition. We deliver delicious meals right to your door whether you’re living with or recovering from an illness, and having trouble shopping or cooking. Our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists work with you to design your individualized meal plan. We’re here for you! (We support healthcare providers getting meals for their partners, too).

  • Use our Eligibility Screener to see if you or your loved one qualifies for our program
  • Find out if you qualify by checking our Client Services FAQs page or by emailing us at clientservices@glwd.org
  • Learn more about how nutrition can support you or your loved one here.
  • See some of our meal options here.
  • Get additional resources from our Social Services Partners here.
  • Get food safety during COVID-19 information here.

Hear from our Frontline Workers

From all of us at God’s Love We Deliver, THANK YOU for all you do to help our clients during COVID-19 and beyond.

Read our Blog

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6.18.20 / Nutrition

Cooking through the Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic requires revisions to our medically tailored meal program which pose huge challenges for our program staff. For example, social distancing in kitchen volunteer shifts means fewer volunteers, but we are c…

6.8.20 / Donate

Current and Emerging Needs in the Wake of COVID-19

Cooking and home-delivering medically tailored meals for the most vulnerable people in NYC is more important than ever during this unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of our clients are seniors, many live alone, and…