About GSSI
Our story
Gastroparesis Support Services, Inc. (GSSI) was founded to help people living with gastroparesis — a condition that slows or stops the movement of food from the stomach to the small intestine — and the families who support them.
Many patients travel far from home for testing and treatment. That travel brings costs on top of illness: a hotel, meals, groceries, and rides to appointments. GSSI exists to help with those practical needs, so patients can focus on their care.
Meet Jennifer Polly Dunegan
Jennifer Polly Dunegan is the founder of Jennifer’s GP House and a director of Gastroparesis Support Services, Inc. (GSSI). She knows this work from the inside: she lives with gastroparesis herself, and she built GSSI around the practical help patients and families actually need when they travel for testing and treatment — a place to stay, food and grocery support, local rides, and someone who understands.
Jennifer’s GP House is her long-term goal: a house where gastroparesis patients and families can stay while receiving care, close to treatment, like a home away from home. Until that house exists, GSSI helps one patient at a time.
Her service has been recognized across Kentucky and beyond. She is a proud Kentucky Colonel, the highest title of honor bestowed by the Governor of Kentucky. She serves as vice president of the Kentucky Hemophilia Foundation. She was a state ambassador for NORD, the National Organization for Rare Disorders. And in 2018, the Oley Foundation honored her with its LifelineLetter Award (HEN), given to a home enteral nutrition consumer or caregiver who demonstrates courage, perseverance, a positive attitude, and exceptional generosity in helping others.
Her husband, Patrick Dunegan, previously chaired the Kentucky Rare Disease Advisory Council and now serves as director of the Kentucky Cannabis Freedom Coalition, and together they have carried this advocacy as a family.
What we do
When funding is available, GSSI provides:
- Hotel support for patients and families traveling for testing and treatment
- Food cards for area restaurants
- Grocery cards
- Local rides, including rideshares, to appointments and testing
- Gift bags with personal-care items and activities to help pass the time between tests and treatments, plus resource sheets for the stay and for when you get home
Jennifer’s GP House
Our long-term goal is Jennifer’s GP House — a house where gastroparesis patients and families can stay while receiving care, close to treatment, like a home away from home.
Until that house exists, we help one patient at a time with hotels, food, groceries, and rides.
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit
Gastroparesis Support Services, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Louisville, Kentucky, founded in 2017. EIN: 82-0699806. Donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.