The federal government wants to direct low-income families in the Roanoke Valley towards healthy foods- getting them free for a while.
A USDA grant of more than $400-thousand will connect eligible Medicaid patients to the Southwest Virginia Produce Prescription Program. Those with high blood pressure, prediabetes, and diabetes can get six free months of fruits and vegetables. The program will be especially helpful for those on tight food budgets.
Among the grant recipients is Carilion Clinic, helping them prepare the food. Carilion's Health Education Manager, Rachel Burks, said the long-term goal is food security.
"For this prescription program, we built in quite a lot of support," she said. "From nutrition and cooking education classes that start weekly at the beginning, but then, move to a monthly schedule. They can be connected to additional services, for example, to community health workers that can help them apply for other benefits, or navigate other challenges they may be facing in their lives.”
The grant also lets recipients to get their free produce locally, through Feeding Southwest Virginia, participating Fresh Match outlets and farmer’s markets, while connecting them with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP benefits.
Maureen McNamara Best, the Executive Director at LEAP (Local Environmental Agriculture Project) in Roanoke, said one key to the program was offering lots of options to get those fruits and vegetables.
"Cost is a real burden," she explained. "And the cohort model, really feeling like there's a group of people to work through challenges with, to talk through these lifestyle changes, is important."
Best said the produce locations, like Fresh Match outlets, can help advise the best uses for certain fruits and vegetables.
The 6-month produce prescriptions will be offered for about three years to Medicaid patients in Roanoke, Floyd, Franklin County, and Radford, but researchers at Radford University are looking at ways to make the program more sustainable, and on a statewide basis.
