KINGSTON, N.Y. — Angel Food East provides five free meals a week to 80 homebound individuals across Ulster County out of St. John’s Episcopal Church on Albany Avenue.
Kitchen Manager Fiona McElroy, Angel Food East’s part-time Kitchen Manager and only employee, said when the program started in 1991 to serve homebound individuals with HIV/AIDS, who were banned from some food pantries and soup kitchens over fears of the spread of the disease.
Angel Food presently serves 80 individuals who are unable to access grocery stores or pantries. McElroy said while the organization continues to serve those in the community with HIV/AIDS, it also serves people with chronic conditions ranging from brain injuries to diabetes. Like many other food assistance programs in the area, Angel Food has seen demand grow in recent times, with the program currently having a waiting list, McElroy noted.
McElroy estimated 75% of the individuals Angel Food serves are senior citizens. The non-profit serves Kingston and surrounding communities, going as far as Saugerties in the north and New Paltz and Kerhonkson in the south, she said. “We typically stay within a 30-minute drive of here,” she added.
Lisa Hantes, who chairs the non-profit’s board, said, unlike programs like Meals on Wheels, Angel Food East has no income requirements and instead only requires that the invidual served is home-bound for physical or mental reasons that serve as a barrier preventing them from accessing food by other means.
Angel Food East Kitchen Manager Fiona McElroy shows off a meal that was set be delivered to a homebound individual the non-profit serves on Thursday, Dec.18, 2025, at Angel Food’s headquarters at the St. John’s Episcopal Church at 207 Albany Ave, Kingston. (Brian Hubert, Daily Freeman)
On occasion, Angel Food serves people temporarily, such as if someone has a surgery that leaves them wheelchair-bound and unable to cook until they recover enough to get back on their feet, she added.
Hantes noted that while Angel Food has had close ties to St. John’s throughout its history, it is a strictly secular organization.
McElroy, a proud Keegan Army member who loves to cook, said she first learned about Angel Food when she entered and won a mac and cheese contest held each spring at Keegan Ales, which serves as the non-profit’s largest fundraising event. “Everyone loves mac and cheese,” she said.
McElroy has worked part-time at the organization for about a year. She said her duties include overseeing a team of 35 volunteers tasked with cooking, packing and delivering the food.
She said the hours work perfectly around her other job working as a bartender at the White Eagle Hall on Delaware Avenue.
On a recent Thursday, McElroy was overseeing a small team of volunteers packing up meals for delivery. Later in the day, a volunteer team of local UnitedHealthcare employees was set to come in to bake Christmas cookies. She added that people from many other area non-profits and businesses have come in to pitch in over the years.
Angel Food’s delivery operation is aided by individuals from the Arc Mid-Hudson’s Kingston office and the Anderson Center for Autism, McElory said.
“They love getting a chance to get out,” McElory said, adding that individuals the organization serves love getting to see them as well.
Deliveries are made once a week, McElory said. Hantes added that they try to limit delivery routes to no more than two hours to be fair to volunteers.
McElroy and Hantes said they both pitch in with making deliveries when there are not enough volunteers around to ensure all the meals are delivered.
“When an emergency pops up, I’ll do some deliveries,” McElroy said. “It takes a village.”
Hantes said while driving is her least favorite volunteer role to take on, she always ends up with a smile on her face after getting to meet with the individuals the organization serves, many of whom have little in the way of people to assist them.
Hantes said the organization also always delivers a birthday cake to the individuals it serves on their birthday week, and she recalled how one man told her that it was the only birthday cake he ever received.
“It brought me to tears,” she said.
Hantes and McElroy both proudly showed off a handwritten thank-you note from an individual Angel Food delivers food to each week. Hantes and McEcElroy said they also get many calls each week, with some admittedly coming from individuals the non-profit serves who are lonely.
Turning to the meals themselves, McElroy said all the meals are microwaveable, keeping in mind that the individuals the organization serves are often unable to cook.
The meals are prepared by different teams on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
McElroy noted that the kitchen team recently managed to prepare 24 turkeys in one day for Thanksgiving dinner.
Angel Food seeks to have a “whole food” mindset, and that means avoiding processed foods whenever possible and providing some sort of fruit and vegetables for each day, Hantes said. “We won’t use canned tomatoes when fresh tomatoes are available,” she added.
McElroy and Hantes said the organization does try to accommodate individual needs, ranging from diabetes to personal preferences such as someone not liking a certain food. This was reflected in no bananas being written on one of the bags set for delivery.
Hantes said Angel Food partners with the YMCA of Kingston Ulster County’s Farm Hub program and the countywide Farm to Food Pantry program to deliver fresh produce to the people it serves.
McElroy said she obtains much of the food by shopping at area retailers, particularly those with options to buy in bulk such as Sam’s Club and Restaurant Depot. She cautioned that sometimes this doesn’t always work out, forcing her to go to other stores such as Walmart. She said she buys upwards of 30 pounds of meat. She recalled one time when this meant emptying the meat case at an area store. “I felt so bad for the other people shopping,” she said.
The organization also receives food donations from the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, with McElroy noting that the Food Bank provided the grapes in this week’s deliveries.
Hantes said the program is funded by grants from various other non-profits, including the Episcopal Foundation, Dyson Foundation and the Community Foundation of the Hudson Valley and the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, public sources including Ulster County and sometimes the city, along with a range of private donors.
Sometimes the individuals Angel Food serves pitch in with small donations, Hantes said.
While area non-profits that work in food assistance, including People’s Place and Family of Woodstock, have expressed fears about cuts to federal funding for food assistance programs under the Trump Administration, Hantes noted that Angel Food does not rely on any federal funding.
McElroy said Angel Food would like to expand to serve more of the county, but she noted this could only happen with a larger roster of volunteers.
Right now, the organization has a particular need for backup volunteer drivers who can fill in when regular drivers are not available, she said.
To learn more about Angel Food East and to volunteer or donate visit https://www.angelfoodeast.org/.
Dining and Cooking