On Monday, students learned about the importance of giving back during assemblies in preparation for the school’s upcoming Day of Service on Sunday, January 29. The presentation featured an informational (and very entertaining!) video about this year’s partner organization, God’s Love We Deliver, starring Jane Krakowski. After the video, the students heard from a panel of speakers including Michael Sennott, a longtime volunteer and former chair of the God’s Love We Deliver Board of Directors as well as a Gaynor alumni grandparent. He introduced his grandson, Ronan Sennott ‘19, who has been leading volunteer efforts with God’s Love We Deliver through his current high school’s community service club.
Mr. Sennott greeted the students by telling them a bit about his history as a person with learning differences that were not diagnosed until adulthood. “In the course of my lifetime, we’ve come a long way, and you are very lucky to be here at Gaynor. It changed the life of our whole family to have the support of a community like this.”
He continued, “I joined God’s Love as a community service project about 25 years ago. And I’ve held every job in the place and it’s been the most rewarding thing I’ve done. Because the ability to bring food to people who are homebound, who can’t leave their homes, can’t shop, can’t cook for themselves — to be able to bring individually tailored nutritional meals to help them get better is really a gift and we all look upon that as giving a gift to them. But they give a gift back to us.”
Ronan agreed with his grandfather that Gaynor is a very special place, and he equated the differentiated education students receive at Gaynor with the differentiated meals God’s Love We Deliver provides its clients. He said, “At Gaynor, the teachers teach you based on what your needs are and they meet you on your level. All of you learn differently. All of you need a different kind of educational support and God’s Love understands that about their clients. Their meals are different for everyone based on their individual medical needs. They provide nutritional and healthy meals to those people. And it is a really magical feeling to wake up and know that the organization you work with is providing so much value to people. You guys have a wonderful support system here at Gaynor and God’s Love is that support system for so many people.”
Students were energized by the presentation and asked many questions about Ronan’s school experience and the opportunity to volunteer for God’s Love We Deliver. God’s Love staff members Lauren Jacobs and Candy Yun were on hand to help field questions from the audience.
On January 29, the entire Gaynor community is encouraged to come to the Performing Arts Center to create special greeting cards that will be packaged with some of the over 13,000 meals delivered by God’s Love each weekday. Then, students and their families can sign up to continue giving back at the God’s Love We Deliver kitchen at 166 Avenue of the Americas in the week following the Day of Service. Learn more about Gaynor’s Day of Service and sign up to volunteer for God’s Love We Deliver!