History      It begins with one idea.      She left Chicago 23 years ago to "try to make a go of it in San Diego."  At first, she worked for tips-only at The Huddle, a popular neighborhood restaurant on Goldfinch Street in Mission Hills.  Since 1986, she has owned it.      But the story of Special Delivery begins in 1989, when Ruth Henricks' life took a dramatic turn.  A daily customer confided that he had AIDS.  "Then all of sudden he stopped coming in," she recalls.

"I knew he must be too weak to prepare his own food and that if he wasn't eating at the restaurant, he wasn't eating at all.   I had no way of tracing him--I'd never even heard his last name.  I decided that this should never happen again."

      And so, with a few friends and an all-volunteer staff, Ruth launched Special Delivery, a food service for homebound AIDS patients.  When her restaurant kitchen got too cramped and a client made Special Delivery the beneficiary of his $10,000 life insurance policy, Ruth rented the space next door.  Today, with donations from individuals and money from grants and foundations, she's able to provide three meals a day to those in need free of charge.

      Effective January 1, 2007, to qualify for home-delivered meals and/or pantry food, prospective clients must live in our service area in San Diego and have a great need for our service due to illness and/or financial situation. Clients outside our service area may pickup meals at our office.