In 2003 chef Sheri Sullivan, the former owner of Sheri’s Diner and Plan-It Sheri Catering, became a hospice volunteer. She quickly realized that as someone approached the end of life, food could offer comfort and be a gift of love. Sheri soon began donating meals to hospice patients and their families in her community.

Inspired by the difference these meals made, and the depth of gratitude expressed by patients and their families, she was moved to create a model that could be replicated in any hospice agency nationwide. She reached out to other local restaurants and chefs, and with their help and the help of friends, started Dinners With Love, Inc., in 2009. In 2010, DWL became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Brandon, Vermont. 

In 2022 after a day long retreat with an expert in non profit growth, the board came away with two simple but very profound conclusions. It was of utmost impotance that DWL be available to any hospice agency that wanted it and the organization itself, Dinners With Love did not need to exist to accomplish that.  

Sheri Sullivan, left, with our first volunteer, Pat Hanson, at our tenth anniversary celebration on April 28, 2019 at the Middlebury Inn.