A bumper sticker advises: “Love people. Cook them good food.” Countless mothers and fathers follow this advice every day for their families. Chefs go to work to live out the ideal of preparing good food to please people at a very deep and personal level. Advertisers appeal to the appetites of millions of consumers with savory images of new pizzas and other special foods. People love to eat, and people eat to live, of course.

Another side of the food equation, though, does not get as much attention as the joy of good food with loved ones and at favorite restaurants. Every day, millions of individuals are unable to eat because they are housebound due to serious illness—unable to go downstairs and cross the street much less able to navigate the roads and parking lots between them and the supermarkets and restaurants that have the food they need to survive. Stepping in to fill a massive void of nutrition, an AIDS charity called God’s Love We Deliver has proven, with decades of experience, that fearless love is the best way to face an unthinkable adversary—a disease that takes away people’s ability to live life fully.

Delivering Healthy Food

God’s Love We Deliver began in 1985 when a hospice volunteer visited an AIDS patient who was too ill to cook his own meals. She saw an urgent need, not just for food, which she began preparing for her patient, but for nutritionally unique meals, tailored to demanding medical conditions. As she was delivering a healthy meal to her patient the next day, a local minister stopped her to talk. When she explained what she was doing, the minister remarked to her, “You are not just serving food, you are delivering God’s love.”

The name stuck, the organization grew and grew, and is now delivering 5,000 meals every weekday to people who suffer with AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and other debilitating conditions. With over 15 million healthy and complete meals served over the course of 30 years in Brooklyn, N.Y., the organization has thrived with an army of volunteers and the backing of many individuals who have given time and money to the cause.

Inspired to Serve

A New York yoga teacher named Jason Patrick was diagnosed with HIV in 2011. His life changed. He came to see the connections in his life in ways he never had before: his dependence on countless others who helped him live with the changes in his life as he began to face life with the disease. He soon looked for a way to give back to the community. Aware of God’s Love We Deliver since the ’80s when many of his gay friends were suffering with AIDS in the early years of the disease, Patrick turned his big heart toward service with the group that feeds the hungry in need.

Big Love, All Weekend

Since 2013, Jason, known to many as “the Bearded Yogi,” has hosted a birthday party that doubles as a fundraiser and awareness booster for God’s Love We Deliver. Now called “The Big Love Weekend,” the event has grown into a weekend of health and wellness activities and education, as well as a celebration bash with food, fun, music, and joy in abundance. Scheduled for Feb. 28 and March 1, 2015, The Big Love Weekend features big names in yoga and fitness gathering to teach and learn principles of wellness on Saturday. The celebration and festivities gather steam on Sunday with food, music, DJs, and more. The event aims to honor those who have given time and effort to see that others in need are fed.

As the Bearded Yogi notes about God’s Love We Deliver—the nutrition does not come through just the food alone but is found in the home visits, the conversations, the hugs, smiles, and the hope that the group and its army of workers deliver to the afflicted. And that is the true essence of religion: living in service to those in need.