There is a familiar face in the kitchen of God’s Love We Deliver in SoHo. Celebrity chef Amanda Freitag is helping volunteers assemble 12,500 Thanksgiving meals for New Yorkers with life-altering illnesses.

Freitag says she has a personal connection to the organization.

What You Need To Know

God’s Love We Deliver will prepare and deliver 12,500 Thanksgiving meals

The organization prepares and delivers meals to New Yorkers with life-altering illnesses

God’s Love started 40 years ago and has prepared and delivered more than 40 million meals since then 

“My friend actually used the services of God’s Love and he got well, and he told me about it. We were working in a restaurant together, and he told me about his journey, and I said I want to meet these people. I want to know more about it. So that was in 2009, and I’ve been involved ever since,” Freitag said. 

God’s Love is celebrating 40 years of preparing and delivering meals for those New Yorkers who are too weak or sick to get to the grocery store or cook in their homes. It all started in 1985 as a response to the AIDS epidemic.

The meals are medically tailored to help clients get well.

“The dignity of getting a full meal, fully prepared, is just a game changer for people with illness,” Terrence Meck, president and CEO of God’s Love We Deliver, said.

Office manager Pat Costello is well aware of the impact God’s Love has had. She has been working with the organization since 1991, when she was a delivery driver.

“When I started on Thursdays, we would meet and read off names of clients that we fed, and we had 162 names — that was 1991. We now have 15,000 clients, and it just blows my mind how much of a change and effect we have had on New York and life in the world.”

Their annual Thanksgiving meal features all the good stuff: turkey, stuffing, sweet potato mash.

Around 1,000 volunteers will make it happen on the big day, with tens of thousands more throughout the year.

“We are doing about 12,500 meals, and with the workforce: 99% is our volunteers so we are able to get our meals out to our clients,” Curtis Wilson, executive sous chef, said.

For more on God’s Love and Celebrate With a Plate — a $20 donation to sponsor a holiday meal for a client and their guest — head here.