WLG | impact '26: Purpose in Practice in New York

That idea ran through WLG | regional New York '26 in different but closely connected ways. It was present in the story behind the organization that welcomed us into its space and in keynote speaker Rebeca Vargas' challenge to consider how our own skills, experiences, relationships, and resources can create opportunities for others. 

Through WLG | impact, World Law Group (WLG) looks for meaningful ways to engage with and support the communities that host our in-person meetings. In New York, that brought us to God's Love We Deliver. 

God's Love We Deliver began in New York City in 1985, during the AIDS epidemic, after hospice volunteer Ganga Stone visited a man living with AIDS who was too ill to prepare his own meals. Recognizing that he needed more than simply food, she began preparing meals tailored to his medical needs. Together with co-founder Jane Best, she helped establish an organization that initially delivered meals by bicycle to people living with AIDS. 

What began on that deeply personal scale has grown considerably. By 2025, God's Love We Deliver had delivered more than 40 million meals, providing medically tailored meals and nutrition support to people living with serious illness. 

WLG | regional New York '26 was held at the organization's Manhattan headquarters. A portion of the venue's rental fees directly supports its programs and services, meaning the decision about where we gathered became part of how the meeting could contribute to its host community. 

During the meeting, Kennah Simmons, Manager, Venue, Events & Corporate Engagement, gave delegates a closer look at the organization's history, mission, and work, as well as the role that partnerships and events within the space play in supporting that mission. 

It was a fitting setting for a broader conversation about what it means to use the resources available to us with purpose. 

That question took on a more personal dimension in Rebeca Vargas' keynote, From Wall Street to Social Impact: Leading with Identity and Purpose. 

Vargas' own career initially followed a familiar definition of professional achievement. She recalled leaving university focused on climbing the corporate ladder and reaching the corner office. Her career took her through senior positions in banking, including roles at Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and J.P. Morgan. 

Over time, however, she began to see her professional skills as useful for something beyond her own advancement. 

While working in banking, Vargas helped develop financial products intended to address the needs of underserved consumers. Later, moving into nonprofit leadership gave her the opportunity to apply skills developed in the corporate world, including strategy, research, marketing, relationship-building, and program development, to social challenges. 

At the U.S.-Mexico Foundation, that included creating Dreamers Without Borders, which brought young people of Mexican origin who had grown up in the United States to Mexico to connect with their heritage, families, and communities. Years later, Vargas told delegates that she still encounters participants from those programs and sees where their paths have taken them. 

She also developed a mentoring initiative to encourage girls from underserved communities in Mexico and across Latin America to pursue STEAM careers. As the program developed, Vargas discovered that titles and conventional ideas of professional success mattered much less to the participants than genuine human connection. What resonated was meeting women whose experiences felt recognizable, and seeing possibilities for their own futures through those relationships. 

For Vargas, those experiences changed her own understanding of success. 

Her point was not that professional achievement and social impact exist in opposition. In fact, much of her story demonstrated the opposite: the expertise developed through a career can become one of the most valuable resources a person has to offer. 

For an audience of lawyers, Vargas made that challenge particularly direct. 

Nonprofits, she noted, need many of the same technical, strategic, and organizational capabilities as other enterprises, but they do not always have access to them. Legal professionals already possess expertise that can help these organizations navigate challenges, build stronger organizations, and extend their impact. 

Her invitation was therefore practical: consider where the skills you already use every day might be valuable beyond your usual professional setting. 

That idea also brings the two experiences in New York together. 

God's Love We Deliver began when one person saw an immediate need and responded with what she could offer. Its growth since then has depended on people continuing to contribute in different ways: through time, expertise, partnerships, financial resources, and the use of its space. 

Vargas' story approached the same idea from a different angle. Her capacity to effect change did not require her to leave her professional experience behind. Instead, she learned to apply what that career had taught her in new ways and encouraged others to consider doing the same. 

WLG | impact is built around this same principle: using our in-person meetings as an opportunity not only to gather within a community, but to engage with and contribute to it. 

In New York, some of that contribution was built into the meeting itself through our decision to gather at God's Love We Deliver. But perhaps the more lasting opportunity lies in what delegates take with them. 

For legal professionals, contribution can extend far beyond financial support. It might be legal expertise, a board role, mentorship, an introduction, strategic advice, or simply the willingness to make time for an organization that could benefit from what we know. 

Vargas challenged delegates to see those abilities as resources in their own right. 

The question worth carrying forward is a simple one: What do we already have that could make a difference if we chose to put it to work?