Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:Health Happens Here marketing continued to target residents and potential produce stand customers at the Palo Vista/Lockwood Gardens/Lion's Creek housing complex. We maintained our pop- up produce stand and pre-order service at Palo Vista Senior Apartments. Outreach activities to encourage produce sales and consumption were also carried out at Lockwood Gardens and Lions Creek Crossing. Outreach and engagement activities continued to be carried out in partnership with Resident Services staff at all housing complexes and targeted to engage residents in a low-income, low-food-access community where the ability to find and afford healthy produce items is severely limited. Our pilot market booth project also continued to serve adjacent neighborhoods, with a total indirect project target population of 20,000 residents, including areas of family poverty levels between 23-39%, and minority population of 95-98%. Obesity levels in these areas remain over 30% and diabetes rates average 13-16%. The other main site for our Health Happens Here program remained at Highland Hospital. Our hospital-based produce stand and patient engagement activities continued to target low-income primary and out-patient/clinic care patients, many of whom have been counseled on or diagnosed with diet-related conditions. Highland Hospital serves over 10,000 inpatient discharges and 170,000 outpatient visits annually, and our produce stand was also accessible to the 21,000 residents of nearby LILA neighborhoods, non-White people account for 80-82% of neighborhood residents, and family poverty ranges from 12-32%. This area exhibits obesity rates from 25-30% and diabetes rates of 11-17%. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?To further support the residents at OHA, the Nutrition Educator coordinated 4 large-scale health fair events with the support of 4 San Francisco State graduate students during the spring and summer months of 2018. These events collectively reached over 400 residents. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This year, we continued our partnerships with Highland Hospital and Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) by running weekly produce stands at each site. During the 2017-2018 grant period, we continued to serve the 200+ unique households that we established connections within the previous grant period. Mandela continued its delivery service for OHA residents purchasing at least $5.00 in produce items. At Highland Hospital, we have continued to leverage relationships with providers and hospital administration through our weekly produce stand. By expanding access to affordable produce, our weekly produce stand has assisted patients in combating some of the challenges of food insecurity. The stand further bridges healthcare provider and patient by serving as a welcoming and accessible site for regular nutrition education workshops and cooking demos. During the 2017-2018 grant year period, we saw $9,500 of produce sales to low-income patients of the hospital's primary care and clinic facilities at the Highland Hospital produce stand. Sales across all 12 Healthy Retail sites were $77,350, resulting in a nearly 15% increase in sales from the end of the first year in August 2017, and a nearly 20% increase in increase in healthy food sales over average at the start of the project in 2016. Of the patients surveyed at community outreach and nutrition education events at the 2 new retail sites, 70% reported improved health, increased consumption, and increased awareness of diet and health since the beginning of the grant period. We attribute these outcomes and sales to high-touch community outreach, nutrition education, and targeted health-promoting marketing. We also continued to leverage a suite of customized marketing materials promoting a NIFA-FINI funded project, the FreshCreds SNAP incentive program, to maximize the impact of Health Happens Here marketing at our 12 Healthy Retail Sites.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:Grant activities remained largely the same as the previous grant year period. Health Happens Here marketing continued to targetresidents and potential produce stand customers at the Palo Vista/Lockwood Gardens/Lion's Creek housing complex. We maintained our pop up produce stand and pre-order service at Palo Vista Senior Apartments.Outreach activities to encourage produce sales and consumption were also carried out at Lockwood Gardens and Lions Creek Crossing. Outreach and engagement activities continued to be carried out in partnership with Resident Services staff at all housing complexes and targeted to engage residents in a low-income, low-food-access community where the ability to find and afford healthy produce items is severely limited. Our pilot market booth project also continued to serveadjacent neighborhoods, with a total indirect project target population of 20,000 residents, including areas of family poverty levels between 23-39%, and minority population of 95-98%. Obesity levels in these areas remain over 30% and diabetes rates average 13-16%. The other main site for our Health Happens Here program remained at Highland Hospital.Our hospital-based produce stand and patient engagement activities continued to target low-income primary and out-patient/clinic care patients, many of whom have been counseled on or diagnosed with diet-related conditions. Highland Hospital serves over 10,000 inpatient discharges and 170,000 outpatient visits annually, and our produce stand was also accessible to the 21,000 residents of nearby LILA neighborhoods, non-White people account for 80-82% of neighborhood residents, and family poverty ranges from 12-32%. This area exhibits obesity rates from 25-30% and diabetes rates of 11-17%. Changes/Problems:The previous Project Director, Trisha Chakrabarthy, left during the final grant year period, in May 2018, and the new Project Director, Ciara Segura, joined the organization in June 2018. Another staff member, the Healthy Retail Coordinator, also left the organizationin June 2018. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?To further support the residents at OHA, the Nutrition Educator coordinated 4 large-scale health fair events with the support of 4 San Francisco State graduate students during the spring and summer months of 2018. These events collectively reached over 400 residents. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This year, we continued our partnerships with Highland Hospital and Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) by running weekly produce stands at each site. During the 2017-2018 grant period, we continued to serve the 200+ unique households that we established connections within the previous grant period. Mandelacontinued its delivery service for OHA residents purchasing at least $5.00 in produce items. At Highland Hospital, we have continued to leverage relationships with providers and hospital administration through our weekly produce stand. By expanding access to affordable produce, our weekly produce stand has assisted patients in combating some of the challenges of food insecurity. The stand further bridges healthcare provider and patient by serving as a welcoming and accessible site for regular nutrition education workshops and cooking demos. During the 2017-2018 grant year period, we saw $9,500 of produce sales to low-income patients of the hospital's primary care and clinic facilities at the Highland Hospital produce stand. Sales across all 12 Healthy Retail sites were $77,350, resulting in a nearly 15% increase in sales from the end of the first year in August 2017, and a nearly 20% increase in increase in healthy food sales over average at the start of the project in 2016. Of the patients surveyed at community outreach and nutrition education events at the 2 new retail sites, 70% reported improved health, increased consumption, and increased awareness of diet and health since the beginning of the grant period. We attribute these outcomes and sales to high-touch community outreach, nutrition education, and targeted health-promoting marketing. We also continued to leverage a suite of customized marketing materials promoting a NIFA-FINI funded project, the FreshCreds SNAP incentive program, to maximize the impact of Health Happens Here marketing at our 12 Healthy Retail Sites.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience:Health Happens Here targeted residents and potential produce stand customers in the following communities: Palo Vista/Lockwood Gardens/Lion's Creek housing complex: Housing facilities in East Oakland managed and developed by the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA). Palo Vista Senior Apartments area 100-unit senior housing complex, where the pop-up produce stand is located and where primary pre-order produce bag customers reside. Outreach activities to encourage patronage and consumption of offered produce items were also carried out at Lockwood Gardens, a 372-unit public housing developmentand Lions Creek Crossing, a 567-unit OHA/East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation site adjacent to the Oakland Coliseum in East Oakland. Outreach and engagement activities were carried out in partnership with Resident Services staff at all housing complexes, and targeted to engage residents in a low-income, low-food-access community where the ability to find and afford healthy produce items is severely limited. Our pilot market booth project also servesadjacent neighborhoods, with a total indirect project target population of 20,000 residents, including areas of family poverty levels between 23-39%, and minority population of 95-98%. Obesity levels in these areas are over 30% and diabetes rates average 13-16%. The other main site for our Health Happens Here program is Highland Hospital,the largest public campus of Alameda Health System, with236 in-patient beds. Our hospital-based produce stand and patient (potential customer) engagement activities will specifically target low-income primary and out-patient/clinic care patients (Highland also has an on-campus Federall-Qualified Health Clinic), many of whom have been counseled on or diagnosed with diet-related conditions. Highland Hospital servesover 10,000 inpatient discharges and 170,000 outpatient visits annually, and our produce stand is also accesible to the21,000 residents of nearby LILA neighborhoods. Non-white peopleaccount for 80-82% of neighborhood residents, and family poverty ranges from 12-32%. This area exhibits obesity rates from 25-30% and diabetes rates of 11-17%. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Mandela MarketPlace's Community Nutrition Educator generally supports our Community Produce Stand program with weekly taste-testings and easy-to-prepare recipes that feature seasonal produce items that are sold through our partner farmers at the produce stands. Her work is geared specifically towards increasing customer engagement with the produce items and building the habit of shopping at their weekly stand into their weekly grocery habits. However, with the start of these two community produce stands in partnership with institutional partners like Oakland Housing Authority and Alameda Health System, we found that the need for further resident/patient engagement and connection to health and nutrition information was also of value. Our Community Nutrition Educator began to build more outreach capacity into her skillset and developed an expertise in reaching out to those patients/residents, as more than potential produce stand customers, but also in their own right, as people interested in learning more about the role of nutrition and food-based wellness in their lives. She developed a workshop curriculum that is adaptable to those two settings, and worked to build relationships with other service providers or clinicians on-site to ensure the delivery of those workshops was tailored to the setting and appropriate resources were made available. This is a long-lasting change within this role at Mandela, and we plan to incorporate more partner-engagement in our outreach planning and delivery. In addition, Mandela's produce stand model involves hiring local leaders to serve as produce stand assistants, who have a connection in the surrounding community and are able to serve as a familiar face to those shoppers who want that connection with the place where they do their shopping. Those residents or patients are also low-income shoppers who need employment and connections to potential future employers, and regular Mandela produce stand staff are able to serve as on-the-job trainers and mentors. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue the weekly operation of the produce stands, and will further engage residents and patients in the sales of produce items through those stands. We plan to conduct more fucos groups in our outreach delivery, to ensure that we are continuing to meet the diverse needs of patients and residents, some of whom may have barriers to currently shopping at those produce stands. In addition, part of our continuing outreach and community engagement plan includes building a skillshare and support network of the various resident produce stand assistants, so that they can build community and support each other in building best practices for customer engagement, and can develop to support each other in other non-material ways, as well. We found that one of the most important missing pieces for low-income parents who struggle with food insecurity are strong connections and ability to connect with and share their experience with families that have struggled through the same difficulties and live in the same community. We see this work as integral to supporting the sustainability of the produce stand program because the community support and relationship-building is an important piece of community development, particularly when it involves such a primary need as food and healthy food access.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This year, we were able to bring both produce stand goals to fruition, by partnering with the Oakland Housing Authority and Alameda Health System/Highland Hospital. At the new Oakland Housing Authority site, since we opened the stand in February 2017, we have served 232 unique households. Since the stand servesPaloVista, Lions Creek, and Lockwood Gardens complexes, we can assume that each of those households is comprised of multiple people, so the number of people served is actually much greater. In response to the requests of seniors with limited mobility residing in the Palo Vista apartments, Mandela MarketPlace began a delivery service for customers purchasing at least $5.00 in produce items. Working with the Housing Authority's Resident Services Coordinator, Mandela staff worked to ensure the correct orders were delivered and managed transactions with pre-ordering and pre-payment options. There are now a consistent group of 20 orders for each stand, and Mandela staff have been able to build deep relationships with the seniors in the order placement process. These seniors are now even further invested in the produce stand's continuation and success, and are acutely aware of the service that we provide, and the importance of fresh fruits and vegetables in their weekly diet. At Highland Hospital, we have been able to leverage relationships with providers and hospital administration, all of whom are interested in bringing a more holistic patient-centered healthcare model through the understanding of barriers to food access. The weekly produce stand serves as an opportunity to directly refer patients to an easy-to-access way for them to combat some of the challenges of food insecurity, and as served as a way of opening the conversation between healthcare provider and patient about other nutrition resources within the Highland campus. Since beginning the stand in February 2017, we have seen over $10,000 of produce sales to low-income patients of the hospital's primary care and clinic facilities.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Kao, J., Chakrabarti, T., Woodward-Lopez, G., Harvey, D. Evaluation of a local healthy retail initiative: The Mandela MarketPlace Health and Wealth Net. Paper presented at: American Public Health Association 2017 Annual Conference; November 7, 2017; Atlanta, GA.
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