GMHC staff and volunteers delivered extra-large shopping bags of food and backpacks full of warm winter gear to 400 clients for the holidays.
It took a lot of people to make it happen. Meals and Nutrition Program Director Melissa Gallanter and her team relied on almost 40 volunteer drivers and runners to take the heavy bags to hundreds of clients scattered across New York City’s five boroughs.
The deliveries are a new GMHC tradition that arose in response to the COVID-19 pandemic when the agency suspended its usual holiday dinner to protect clients and staff.
“This is a way that we can still celebrate with our clients and provide for them during the holidays,” Gallanter said. About two-thirds of GMHC’s clients are food insecure, and almost all who received the holiday delivery are living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.
“There’s something special about having somebody hand-deliver food and gifts to you and say Happy Holidays,” she said. But what makes Gallanter happiest is serving homebound clients who’ve been difficult to reach during the pandemic. She explained that COVID-19 and other health concerns have prevented some from coming to GMHC.
The volunteer drivers and runners assembled at our 307 West 38th Street office on December 13 and 20 to make the deliveries. The Meals and Nutrition team has perfected the logistics for NYC traffic. Parking would take all day, so drivers stay in the car while runners deliver the goods. “We need about 20 cars and aim for 20 to 25 deliveries per car,” Gallanter said.
Gallanter’s team staggered arrival times, starting at 9 a.m., so volunteers could load the cars. “Because the meal bags were being delivered, I could make them a little bigger,” she said with satisfaction. Along with regular pantry staples, she included holiday extras like cranberry sauce and stuffing mix.
But she was most excited about the vegetable broth. “Folks coming to our Grab n’ Go pantry say they’d love to get heavy items like broth, milk, and olive oil, but they can’t always carry them home,” she said. “So, I included not only the best holiday items but the heaviest.”
After loading the food, the team added backpacks stuffed with hats, scarves, and gloves, plus soaps and other hygiene items. They gave each car customized route directions and sent them off.
Putting on their advance logistics hats, Gallanter and her team had inputted all the volunteers’ zip codes and addresses to plot routes ending close to their homes—a challenging puzzle with clients in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and even Staten and Roosevelt Islands.
“Meal deliveries aren’t something we ordinarily have the capacity to do, so it’s a special moment to go to our clients instead of having them come to us,” Gallanter said. “It is a way for us to say: This is from us to you.”
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