It’s a good time of the year to reflect on all of our 2018 accomplishments and to share our work with you all. In 2018, the Nutrition Education Department helped support clients and partner agencies to help make the healthy choices the easy choices. We learned that there is not a “one size fits all” approach to helping clients make behavioral changes. So here are some of the many ways that our nutrition team led the community to a wholesome year:

Wellness Pantries and Food Pharmacies 

Partnering up with health care providers has cultivated great success at the food bank. Not only do we address food insecurity issues, but we also address medical issues through food and nutrition education. The clients that participate in these programs have diet-related illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.

Workshop Series and Presentations

We provide a six week workshop series to our partner agency clients at their schools. Clients are empowered to make healthier food choices and learn about topics such as: eating on a budget, reading food labels and creating healthy and balanced meals.

In-line Nutrition Education at our Direct Sites

We have over 50 Direct Site distributions that provide healthy food for our clients. The nutrition team is there on site when possible to share recipes, provide health tips and cook up a food sample (usually with a produce item that might be new to clients).

Community Health Fairs

Attending community events really puts us out there front and center in the community. We have the opportunity to help address barriers that community members face when it comes to their health and wellbeing.

Partnership Engagement

With having a small staff, it’s important to get our partners’ buy-in when it comes to health and nutrition. We work with partners on different levels including making subtle changes in their pantry (e.g. nudges), providing train-the-trainer workshops and having handouts and materials available to them all year round.

We continue to engage our community and hope all are empowered to live a healthy and wholesome life in 2019!