In 1991, when Charles Robbins returned to Denver from Los Angeles, he found that friends living with HIV/AIDS were wasting away before his eyes. He founded Project Angel Heart in response, modeling it after Project Angel Food, a Los Angeles organization where he had been a volunteer.
At first, Charles and a group of friends solicited food from local restaurants and distributed it on the weekends. Project Angel Heart’s first meal was a pan of lasagna donated by Racine’s restaurant and delivered to 12 clients.
By 1999, Charles recognized that the need for services extended beyond people living with HIV/AIDS. The need for home delivered meals for people living with other serious illnesses like cancer and congestive heart failure caused PAH to expand its mission to include people living with any life-threatening illness.
In 2020, PAH delivered more than 505,000 chef prepared and medically tailored meals to at least 3,200 Coloradans living with life-threatening illness in Denver and Colorado Springs. PAH serves children as well as seniors, clients as well as their families, some of whom are living in poverty. About 80% of its clients live in Metropolitan Denver, while 20% will live in Colorado Springs.
These meals provide the regular, daily nutrition that leads to improved health, decreased stress, lower medical bills, and a better quality of life for people with serious health conditions.
PAH is keeping fundraising fun and inviting by creating unique events:
Each July, PAH holds a Summer Cereal Drive and collect healthy cereal to include in breakfast bags.
In 2020, PAH held “Cookie (formerly Pie) in the Sky” and sold homemade autumn cookie kits to raise money for its programming.
How to help!
- Participate in “Cooking Together” on Thursday, March 11 at 6pm. Enjoy a virtual cooking demonstration with the executive chef of PAH along with a box of goodies (hint: they can shipping boxes to out of state donors).
- For anyone living in the Denver or Colorado Springs area, volunteers can deliver meals, assemble, decorate paper food delivery bags, etc. Click here for more ways to volunteer:
Thank you for sharing our story, Christine, and for mentioning “Cooking Together” with Chef Brett Newman, taking place on Thursday, March 11, at 6pm MST. We hope you’ll join us for a live, virtual cooking lesson.
As we cook together, Chef Brett will share some trade secrets and answer frequently asked home chef questions. Project Angel Heart president and CEO, Owen Ryan, will also be there to share how our medically tailored meals save lives and reduce health care costs. You can get a head start on Chef Brett’s Pulled Chicken Gumbo and Cast-Iron Cornbread by ordering our home chef kit. Want to join in but don’t need the kit? No problem… purchase a virtual ticket and join the party!
“Cooking Together” will focus on the power of fresh vegetables, and the gift you make during the event will be used to purchase fresh, whole vegetables that we can incorporate into the meals prepared by our chefs and volunteers. Vegetables provide important nutrients for the people who get our meals…and for us all! That’s why we’re preparing a vegetable-rich gumbo for our cooking lesson, and it’s why every meal we prepare for clients includes two to three servings of vegetables.
Tickets start at $50; sale ends 2/25.
Can’t attend? You can still make a gift to help us fund our purchase of all the fresh vegetables we’ll need for client meals this year!
Purchase your ticket or make a gift now: https://www.projectangelheart.org/CookingTogether