Ask a New Yorker: Good morning Karen. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Please
share who you are and what you do.
Karen: I’m Karen Pearl, and I’m the President and CEO of
God’s Love We Deliver. Gods Love We Deliver is the most fantastic
not-for-profit organization. What we do is cook and then deliver meals to people’s
homes. They are individually tailored meals for people who are really sick and
can’t take care of themselves.
Ask a New Yorker: The name says it all. How did you get started?
Karen: It’s
a great story. Our founder was a woman by the name of Ganga Stone. From
the very beginning she was asked to deliver some groceries to a friend of a
friend who was dying of AIDS. She brought the groceries and they had a fantastic
conversation and she came back the next day to check up on him and found the
groceries still sitting on the counter. At that moment she realized sort of
an epiphany, “It’s not groceries, it’s not food, it’s
meals.”. People who are really sick can’t get up out of bed and
make their own food. So Ganga started to deliver meals. Then one day she was
delivering a meal to somebody and she ran into a minister on the street who
she knew. And he said ”What are you doing?” She said, “I’m
delivering a meal to somebody who is sick.” And he said, ”You’re
are not just delivering a meal your delivering God’s love.” She
said, “That’s the name.”
Ask a New Yorker: That’s beautiful. I’m welling up and getting emotional.
Karen: That’s all right. I do too. We have the story
on video narrated by Natasha Richardson before she passed. You can’t
watch it without welling up. I take it as a compliment.
Ask a New Yorker: Of course. The volunteers are the backbone of this organization.
Karen: And the heart of what we do. They are involved in everything at God’s
Love. There are about 7600 volunteers a year, which is pretty impressive. They
donate over 132,000 hours of service. They do everything. They cook in our kitchen,
chop in our kitchen, go on deliveries, work in our Finance office, our HR office,
our Client Services department, and our Nutrition department. They are woven
into every part of the fabric of God’s Love. And we love them.
Ask a New Yorker: That’s amazing.
Karen: We say this, and it is true, that we could not do what we do without
our volunteers. They double the size of the effort of staff.
Ask a New York: Obviously serving meals is the main thrust of…..
Karen: I would actually say it’s not just the food, it’s the nutrition.
Because everything we do is through the lens of nutrition, because our meals
are tailored to the person who is getting them. So somebody who is living with
cancer might get a different meal from somebody else who is living with cancer.
Because in addition to their cancer one person might have heart disease or might
have diabetes or might have something else that means that they get something
different. So our meals are all tailored through the work of our Nutrition staff
and our Registered Dieticians so that people get the right food.
Ask a New Yorker: It sounds like a lot of moving parts. What’s the most
challenging part of your job?
Karen: I have two answers. One answer is we are growing, growing, growing. We
are serving over twenty percent more this year than we did last year, and over
fifty percent more than four and half years ago. So our biggest challenge is
that we are out of space and every nook and cranny has something related to
our meal program. We are challenged by not having enough room to do everything
we need to do. That’s the big picture. Then another big challenge is of
course always making sure that everybody who comes to God’s Love is enjoying
the experience and really feeling good about it, staff, volunteers, supporters,
and friends, because we are really a joyful place. We do life-affirming work
even though we are serving people who are very, very sick. It’s important
that people feel excited when they come in the door and want to be here because
they know what they are doing today matters to somebody tomorrow. And another
little fact that people may not know is that we provide meals throughout all
five boroughs in New York City and parts of New Jersey.
Ask a New Yorker: With AIDS receding has the mission changed at all?
Karen: I’ll take you on about AIDS receding. It’s different today,
in a very wonderful way, than it was twenty five years ago when we got started.
People don’t get sick and die very quickly and with the magic of anti-retrovirals
they can stay healthy for a long time. Now, our clients with AIDS are people
who come on our program and many are strong enough to come off our program at
some point. They may come on again if something happens with their medications.
But since we serve the sickest of the sick we have lots of clients who are,
unfortunately, still living with serious cases of HIV and AIDS.
Ask a New Yorker: Sorry about the usage of the word “receding”.
Karen: That’s alright. That’s all part of the education. A lot of
people think that AIDS has sort of disappeared domestically, but it has not
disappeared domestically. The change in the trajectory of AIDS did change our
mission though, in the sense that we learned so much in helping people with
HIV and AIDS manage medications and manage their illness through food and nutrition
that we decided about ten years ago to serve those with all illnesses. Today
we serve 200 different diagnoses, people living with all sorts of different
illnesses. AIDS is still a third of all people we serve. The second largest
group is people living with different cancers.
Ask a New Yorker: As you were growing up were there any organizations that may
have influenced you in making this work your profession?
Karen: Not any particular organization…
Ask a New Yorker: Girl Scouts?
Karen: I was a Brownie. I dropped out of Girl Scouts to tell you the truth.
I came from a family that was very socially conscious and very involved in the
community in lots of different ways. And clearly that had an enormous impact
on who I am today. It’s all about taking care of other people and being
a good citizen in the sense of all the meaning we attach to being a good citizen:
caring about other people, caring about your environment and caring about the
well-being of your community. That was always very important to my family.
Ask a New Yorker: We love Joan Rivers and how she kicked butt on
The Apprentice.
Karen: She did. She was remarkable. It’s grueling. People only see the
glamour of the television. It’s a very difficult experience and Joan was
fearless and fierce. She won. We benefited greatly, for which we are so fortunate.
Joan is our rock star. I don’t know what else to call her. She is an amazing
woman. Before I came to God’s Love, I only knew her as a celebrity, but
I have to tell you it was all Joan on Celebrity Apprentice. One of things she
had to do was put on a Gala in twenty four hours basically. It was Joan who
was on her knees straightening the carpet, fixing the table cloths. She gets
in there and makes it happen.
Ask a New Yorker: New York is an amazing celebration of humanity. How do you
define New York?
Karen: What I would say about New York is that it is the most diverse place
and that’s what I love about it. You walk down the street and you see
people from every country, every continent. You hear a million different languages.
It’s a city unlike any other city in the world because of that. When I
travel I’m always amazed at how much more homogenous other places are.
And I just think it is the beauty of New York that we really represent the world.
I just love that.
Ask a New Yorker: Are you a Yankees or Mets fan?
Karen: Yankees.
Ask a New Yorker: What was the last rock concert you’ve seen?
Karen: The most recent live concert I’ve seen was the Nitty Griitty Dirt
Band, which was really fun.
Ask a New Yorker: There’s a Psychic across the street.
Karen: I have not been.
Ask a New Yorker: Have you ever been to one?
Karen: Once a very long time ago.
Ask a New Yorker: Did you have a specific question you wanted an answer to?
Karen: I did not. I actually prefer my future unfolding. I really don’t
want to know. There’s something about that that I find kind of creepy.
I’d rather believe that I have a role in shaping that future. I’m
actually more about the village model. I really think that it’s all about
your people and your community.
Ask a New Yorker: I read you like to garden. What’s your favorite flower?
Karen: That’s a great one. This time of year it is Peonies. I really love
shade gardens too. I love Hostas. We have a pond and at the moment, it has beautiful
bleeding hearts over it.
Ask a New Yorker: What are you reading?
Karen: At this very moment I am reading our Board member Linda Fairstein’s
newest book, Silent Mercy. I’m a big mystery fan. But on the more serious
side, I just finished Sarah’s Key, which is about a young girl in the
Holocaust. I read a lot, particularly with my cat if I can get him to curl up.
Ask a New Yorker: What’s the cat’s name?
Karen: Carl
Ask a New Yorker: That was a very strange noise we just heard.
Karen: My computer has a life of its own. And at this moment it was bubbling.
What can I tell you? It’s a strange thing.
Ask a New Yorker: Down stairs I saw a Wish List. What’s God’s Love’s
wish list?
Karen: We have a Wish List of things that people might want to donate that go
from delivery vans to kitchen utensils and chopping boards. God’s Love
always needs to raise money from the community. We raise over 80% of the dollars
that we need to provide meals from private donations. This year a million meals
were delivered. It’s a record. We just really appreciate all the support
we get from the community. We have thousands of donors which makes it possible
to do our job. Donors of time like our volunteers, donors of recourses. We’re
just grateful.
Ask a New Yorker: You do amazing work and it shows. Thank you for sharing.
