The Family Pantry of Cape Cod has always focused on providing clients with nutritious food choices, and there's evidence that it's paying off from a medical point of view. The Pantry hosts the "Foods to Encourage" program, led by Barnstable County public health nurses, which provides free simple health screenings for visitors. They've found substantial improvement in those metrics for clients who visit the Pantry even just six times a year.
The program works like this: On Tuesday mornings, two public health nurses and a food educator set up shop at the Family Pantry, and clients can sign up and get free on-the-spot blood pressure and glucose checks, as well as health information, referrals, and even flu shots in season.
Support Helping Neighbors
“As a public health nurse, I wanted to provide a program of outreach to vulnerable, under-served populations,” organizer Deirdre Arvidson said. Food pantries were the ideal venue, she noted. “You kind of had a captive audience, while they were waiting for their groceries,” she said. The Barnstable County program was initially known as “Ask A Public Health Nurse,” and was launched at the Family Pantry and one or two other locales.
“Honestly it’s grown crazily,” Arvidson said. “Now we are in a bunch of places” including food pantries, congregate meal sites, social service agencies, community centers and apartment houses, she said. The program was refined about four years ago based on another program created at the Falmouth Service Center and took on the name Foods to Encourage. And the Family Pantry continues to be a key way to reach clients.
“They can come once a week to have their B.P. and glucose checked, and they receive some bit of health information from the nurse,” Arvidson said. “There’s also a nutrition educator available, usually with some kind of healthy snack. And in exchange, they get an extra free bag of produce. So it’s kind of been a great thing,” she said.
Not all food pantries are large enough or have sufficient supplies of fresh produce to provide that incentive, but the Family Pantry is glad to do so, Executive Director Christine Menard said. It’s clear that for some Family Pantry clients, a visit with a Foods to Encourage nurse is one of their only pathways to health care, she said.
“They’ve absolutely saved lives with this thing,” she said.
And the numbers back up that statement. According to statistics from the county, clients who visit just three to five times a year see, on average, a 7 percent improvement in blood sugar and a 6.3 percent drop in systolic blood pressure. If they visit six times or more annually, they’re likely to have a similar drop in blood pressure and a decrease in blood glucose of 23 percent.
“That’s insane,” Menard said. “And anybody can come for that.”
The benefits of Foods to Encourage go beyond the extra bagful of healthy groceries. Arvidson said she and the other nurses often refer visitors to local community health centers for medical follow-ups, and even intervene in urgent situations.
“My nurses have sent people to their doctor or their emergency room if their BP was too high and they were symptomatic,” she said. But Foods to Encourage clients form a bond with their nurses and with each other that has other benefits.
“Sometimes there’s a camaraderie where they’ll form exercise groups or go to another weight loss program,” she said.
Contribute to The Chronicle’s summertime Helping Neighbors campaign by sending a tax-deductible contribution to The Family Pantry, 133 Queen Anne Rd., Harwich, MA 02645, writing “Helping Neighbors” in the memo line. Donors can also text the word “hunger” to 80100 to donate $20, or donate online at https://ift.tt/2E2BgQK by clicking the blue Helping Neighbors logo on the right. The Chronicle will publish a list of donors each week.
