Progress 09/15/23 to 09/14/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Southeast Missouri Food Bank (SEMO Food Bank) serves 16 counties throughout the southeast region of Missouri. This area of the state is mostly rural, with the largest urban center being Cape Girardeau. The 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment indicates that obesity is the leading health concern for Cape Girardeau and its surrounding counties, sixteen of which are in Southeast Missouri Food Bank's geographical service area. Through our mission to "leverage the power of food to build healthy communities," we serve individuals who are experiencing food-insecurity throughout our service area, with this program specifically reaching more individuals in Cape Girardeau and Scott counties. Participants of our Produce Prescription Program are experiencing, managing, or at-risk of developing chronic health diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, COPD, cardiovascular diseases, cancer or nephropathy. Many of our neighbors served also face additional obstacles and barriers to their overall health and wellbeing, such as the lack of reliable transportation, inconsistencies in their economic stability, gaps in education and employment, and other negative factors within their social, emotional, community and environment. Changes/Problems: A few challenges we have encountered with the program include transition of our healthcare partner to a new system, resubmission of our protocol documentation for IRB approval and refinement of our referral process. While these challenges were only momentary, they led to existential growth for our program, providing augmented success and positive outcomes. We redid our surveys and will continue to modify them to incorporate open-ended feedback from our participants. Program participation is improving as well, as participants understand the program more as the details remain consistent and are more welcoming, eliminating the stress and fear participants initially faced when enrolling into the program, due to the idea they would have to pay more money for insurance premiums, visits to their healthcare providers and / or other misconceptions about the program that are no longer present. Other barriers have been identified within transportation and mobility and changes to our program to address these barriers have been found by providing delivery services to eligible individuals. Onebig step toward strengthening our sustainability efforts has been made in the purchase and gifting of reusable insulated tote bags to all our program participants. This has cut down on the amount of food waste and recyclable products going into landfills and dumpsters by allowing our organization to recycle and taking that onus off our participants. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? This project has provided many opportunities for training and professional development throughout our community. SEMO Food Bank staff receive continuous support, training and PD opportunities through the many connections we have with the project, including webinars hosted by the Nutrition Incentive Hub, including the Local Sourcing and Participant Engagement Learning Cohorts hosted by Fair Food Network, attending and presenting at monthly nutrition partnerships meetings hosted by our state Department of Health and Senior Services, collaborating with other grantees of similar projects and attending relevant conferences at the local, regional, state and national level. Our Healthcare Programs Coordinator, who oversees this project, recently attended the virtual PD meeting held by USDA, NIFA, NIH, with fellow grantees from across the nation and last year we gleaned much from the PD Conference in New Orleans. The Principal Investigator of our project attended the mini convening in NYC as well, and brought back valuable key insights to help grow and support our program. With much anticipation and eagerness to learn more, we are registered and looking forward to the upcoming conference in Minneapolis. Our healthcare partner, Mercy, and their clinical nursing staff, receive ongoing training for how to screen, verify and refer eligible patients to our program and are working with the healthcare system's Community Health, Access and Informatics Director on their Mission Integration, which seeks to address all social determinants of health, at our local community level. This specific professional development opportunity is working to identify specific SDOH among our patient population and geographical service area to develop best practices and policies that will have sustainable impacts on both individual and household health and well-being along with the overall health equity of the communities we serve. SEMO Food Bank staff also meet regularly with our state Department of Health and Senior Services on their Physical Activity and Nutrition Grant, as well as with our University of Missouri Extension Office on their High Obesity Program Grant. These streaming funds from the CDC are helping us expand access to our program, provide nutrition education and learning opportunities for our community members and work together more closely with members of our community who are vital to the success of our program. Staff attend community meetings, chamber and networking events, meet with healthcare providers and hospital staff, including our local Veterans Hospital, faculty members of Southeast Missouri State University, and other prominent members of our area's Healthcare Network to provide information regarding the program, including training, collaboration, and identify way to best benefit our communities. This has led to a group effort among health focused providers (food bank, hospital, university, government) to work together to better serve our neighbors and connect them to meaningful services that weave throughout their lives. The Nutrition Incentive Hub has been a great resource to learn from and has provided such rich resources for training and professional development. It contains a plethora of information about the GusNIP grants and programs, as well as how to complete reports, administer surveys, collect insightful data and organize the materials we have provided to our participants. We will be participating in the upcoming GusNIP Community Voices and are very excited to learn from this professional development opportunity and eager to share with other professionals in the field. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? As we are just now completing a one-year completion period for participants in our program, we are beginning to gather post-survey data and are beginning to see strong anecdotal evidence of our program's success! One of our participants has been eager to share his growth, noting that he has lost weight, his blood pressure has improved, he is able to walk better and is very eager to ask his healthcare provider for vitals like cholesterol and blood-sugar level when he returns for his next check-up. Another participant who redeems her prescription regularly and consistently conveys her gratitude, called asking if her friend who had recently experienced a stroke and was momentarily not working could be referred to our program, as she knows how much it helps. During deliveries as well, we have received inquiries and been able to refer and enroll participants through the natural method of visual evidence and observation. These are solid examples of how peer-to-peer outreach strategies are helping spread the word and proof of concept that our program is producing great results! The positive impacts of our program are also being shared on our website and social media platforms, as well as through publication of our quarterly reports and testimonies from our participants, like these words from James (click to read) He says, "I try to make sure I get enough protein each day; I'll drink protein shakes sometimes, but those things are pretty expensive. This program means a lot to me, to be able to get some healthy food." Other participants have called and left voicemails expressing their thankfulness. One participant said, "I wanted to call and tell you thank you for everything that you had in the box. I appreciate it and just wanted to tell you thank you and it will be put to use. Thank you." Another relayed that she missed picking up her produce box as she was sick, and her home healthcare worker forgot to get it. She requested a call as she said, "I need to get it. I really need it this month." This shows how vital this program is to its participants and how much they want to leverage their involvement to help others. We have also seen promising results from the data collected via our baseline, post- and self-reported healthcare use and cost surveys. Those participants who have been actively enrolled and participating in our program for twelve months are eager to complete their post survey and are doing so at a 100% completion rate. As our program continues throughout this next reporting cycle, we are actively collecting more information from our participants, healthcare partners and wider community in order to glean the most significant impacts, results and overall effects. With support from our healthcare partner, Mercy Southeast, we will continue to disseminate the results and key findings of this program as they grow, develop and continue to solidify. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During this next reporting period, we will be working more closely with all individuals involved in this program to augment it and align it with larger policies and best practices in place and being followed by fellow grantees and organizations. We are currently working with the Master of Applied Nutrition Program at Southeast Missouri State University to host graduate students of the program at both of our food bank locations to help us bolster the program, our services and the quality of care we provide. In this next reporting period, we will be piloting a Nutrition Education Program focused on providing evidenced-based resources and information through in-person opportunities to learn and become better together. We also plan on developing a panel of individuals who can speak about our program with lived experience, in order to help us grow the program in any aspects, including participant engagement, reaching underserved communities in our geographical service area who we are not yet, partnering with healthcare providers and distribution sites to expand access to our program and continue to maintain a consistent program that supports positive outcomes, behavior change, and the general health and wellbeing of all current and potential participants. Working with local registered and licensed dieticians, we are also developing a plan for offering healthy cooking classes, demonstrations and taste-testing opportunities where our participants can learn about specific benefits fresh produce and how their increased consumption of fruits and vegetables directly relates to their prevention and management of certain health conditions like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension, cancer and any other illness they might be experiencing. We are excited to continue partnerships with our local educational institutions, including Southeast Missouri State University, Southeast College of Nursing, Lincoln University and the University of Missouri to connecting students with supervised experiential learning opportunities. This been our first year to partner with both graduate students and Americorp Vista Service Members and we are honored to have been chosen as a site to host the next generation of workforce development and provide them with real-world, on the job training and service hours. These partnerships have led to collaboration between SEMO Food Bank and SEMO State University's Department of Allied Health, Kinesiology, and Sport Sciences, allowing us to work together to help individuals with their health, access to healthy produce, and affect our local economy through implementation of this program. We have had the opportunity to speak with students in the Didactic Program in Dietetics about the abundance of services and resources SEMO Food Bank has and connect them with information needed to scaffold and support their learning, specifically in helping with dietary resources and nutrition programming. During this next reporting cycle, we hope to build upon these relationships, braiding the common goal we are all working toward into a woven tapestry of community engagement, with intentional visions of building food knowledge and informing healthy choices within our shared natural and built environments. In this past calendar year, we have developed relationships with local farmers, vendors, retail partners and markets who are eager to learn more about and wish to support our work. South Side Farms, an area non-profit located in the federally designated food desert of South Cape Girardeau, has been a diligent supporter of our Produce Prescription Program, donating over 600 pounds of choice, fresh, desired vegetables to our participants, along with another regional non-profit, Women Connect Women. Both organizations focus on connecting, strengthening and encouraging minority populations including women, black, indigenous and people of color, individuals over the age of 60 and those experiencing food insecurity. Partnerships like these are helping increase consumer demand for fruits and vegetables produced by small and medium-sized farms. As we work to improve the health and economic well-being of our communities, we also seek to decrease the health and wealth disparities that are obviously present. In this next reporting period, we plan to continue working diligently to sustain and expand a diverse and just food system throughout our region. By supporting small and medium-sized farms in our geographical service area, we will be engaging in local urban and rural agricultural efforts, using our shared experiences to guide and inspire. Specifically, we would like to partner with STAN's in Hayti, MO, the network of farmers markets in Cape Girardeau County, and a local retired couple who are growing specifically for SEMO Food Bank. We will continue to build and strengthen these relationships, as well as the newly budding ones throughout the sixteen counties we serve, to ensure more fresh and local produce is sourced, procured and provided whenever possible.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Under the guidance of GusNIP's Theory of Change, SEMO Food Bank's Produce Prescription Program has accomplished many goals in its first year of growth. Our program began in July 2023 and since then has experienced a healthcare partner transition, Institutional Review Board submission and approval, expansion of pick-up sites and a delivery route, as well as developed partnerships with local stakeholders and statewide organizations. We have improved community health and economic well-being and decreased health and wealth disparities, as shown in the data analysis between the baseline, post and self-reported healthcare use surveys our participants complete upon enrollment into and at their one-year mark of our program. We are also working diligently to sustain and expand a diverse and just food-system by working with local and regional vendors, farmers, donors and partners who support our mission and vision. Throughout this last reporting period, we have been successful in shifting vendors as well, in order to provide the freshest, best quality fresh fruits and vegetables to the individuals we serve two times each month. We have also augmented our program to include funding from other sources, including Healthy Blue, University of Missouri Extension, and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. With the support of these organizations, we have been able to supplement participants' prescriptions in various ways, providing nutrition education and counseling, opportunities for community engagement and personal growth, and fun little touches like reusable tote bags that have helped make our program more sustainable. Recently, a participant expressed her gratitude, saying, "Thanks so much for the rice!" As she has a daughter in high-school and two others in the public school system, she has a large household to feed and said, "We make breakfast rice, garlic butter rice, fried rice, chicken, broccoli and rice, chicken rice soup, cheesy rice balls and Tex-Mex with beef. All kinds of stuff!" We recently hosted an informational workshop where participants of our Produce Prescription Program came and learned about the Seasonal and Simple app, created by and available from the University of Missouri Extension. We guided our participants through how to download the app onto, or access the website on, a mobile device of their choosing and then showed them how to use the resource to select, store and prepare fresh fruits and vegetables as well as follow recipes for how to use simple preparations and seasonings, allowing them to taste the goodness of a fruit or vegetable at the peak of its flavor. Seasonal and Simple also categorizes fruits and vegetables by their growing season and details the nutrients and associated health benefits of each type of produce as well as processes for canning, preserving, storing and preparing their prescriptions. Another goal achieved has been to improve our qualitative data-collection methods through the inclusion of simplified and more relevant self-reported healthcare metrics through our collaborative work with the Center for Nutrition and Health Impact. This has streamlined the research aspect of our project and has helped by boosting enrollment, participation and completion rates by over 75%. In this last reporting period, we have served approximately 215 individuals through our Produce Prescription Program, providing them with a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, nutritious recipes, educational opportunities, and most importantly, moments to connect and share their stories, grow, learn and build bridges together. As of September 2024, 38 individuals have completed an active twelve months of participation in our Produce Prescription Program and are eligible to complete our Post and Self-Reported Healthcare Use and Cost Survey, which was recently approved by our healthcare partner Mercy's Institutional Review Board and administered with the help of our NTAE and the Nutrition Incentive Hub.
Publications
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