God’s Love We Deliver: Food for the Body and Soul

In that moment, GLWD was born.

In the beginning, the focus was on feeding people with AIDS. Now the organization serves people with more than 200 diagnoses, most over age 50, but the mission hasn’t changed. “We’re still feeding medically tailored meals to people who are too sick to shop or cook for themselves,” says Ludwigson, who has been with GLWD for 26 years, initially as a volunteer. “After about 10 years, we realized we were learning so much about the power of food for people who are sick, so how could we not use that for people with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s?”

Food as medicine

The idea that food might be “the single best and most simple medical intervention when you’re sick,” as Ludwigson puts it, seems almost unbelievable. The research proves otherwise. 

A 2017 study suggests that receiving medically tailored meals may improve a number of health outcomes for food-insecure people living with chronic health conditions. In a 2019 study of people with type 2 diabetes, 47 percent reported an episode of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) while they were receiving medically tailored meals, versus 64 percent while they were not receiving medically tailored meals. That’s not all.

If you’re on a medically tailored meal program, you’re 70 percent less likely to go to the ER. And if you do go,and are admitted, you’re 72 percent more likely to be discharged to your home instead of a nursing home.

Proof the mission is working? GLWD clients like Barbara Devaney, a 91-year-old cancer survivor who weighed 88 pounds when she began receiving meals from GLWD; three and a half years later, she’s back to her “normal” weight of 110. Every Friday morning, Dite (short for Aphrodite) Pipilis, a 53-year-old volunteer with GLWD, does a walking delivery of food to 10 or so clients, including Devaney.

Client Barbara Devaney, 91, raves about GLWD’s “absolutely wonderful” meals.

Christopher Gregory-Rivera

Pipilis discovered food as medicine to treat her own health conditions — including rheumatoid arthritis and neuropathy — before she’d even heard of GLWD. “There was a period of time when I was trapped in my apartment and needed everything delivered,” she says, as she rings the bell at Barbara’s apartment. “So I understand exactly how the clients feel: not being able to leave home, not seeing people, not feeling well.”

Nourishing a friendship

“How are you? How was your week?” Pipilis says, as Devaney opens her door.

“Very good,” Devaney says. “I see you brought some goodies.”

“Always.”

As Pipilis attaches the bag of meals to Devaney’s walker (the number and frequency of meals vary from client to client), what’s immediately clear is that this is far more than a meal drop-off. Over the years, the two women have become friends.

Friday food deliveries gave volunteer Dite Pipilis “purpose” during the pandemic.

Christopher Gregory-Rivera

“This is how it started,” says Devaney. “One day Dite left my apartment and was going through Washington Square Park when the cherry blossoms were in bloom.  She took a video and sent it to me — and I played it so many times, it was just wonderful. Since then, she’ll take pictures on her travels — she travels a lot — and send them to me. I call them ‘Travels with Dite.’ ”

These meal deliveries, especially throughout the COVID quarantine, helped both women deal with loneliness and isolation. “Food is medicine but so is community, so is engagement,” says Pipilis, who admitted that the volunteer job kept her “sane” during the pandemic. For her part, Devaney, whose relatives mostly live in Pennsylvania and Virginia, looked forward to the “engaging conversations,” as she says. “It made the week to have someone to talk to.”

As the two women catch up on each other’s lives, this also becomes clear: The nourishment from God’s Love We Deliver can take many forms.