The best partnerships succeed because all sides move forward with the larger goals in sight.
For a group of area medical students, it’s the passing of the torch from one group of leaders to another. For the Food Bank, it’s the continuation of a program that’s gained positive feedback. For donors to the Food Bank’s Strategic Investment Fund, it’s validation that funding is being expended in ways that enhance the community.
Through the Food Bank’s Health Meets Home initiative, the students at the LECOM (Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine) campus in Elmira found a way to put their studies into practice while working alongside several local families to develop healthy eating habits.
Health Meets Home is a relatively new program, started in 2021 and funded through donations to the Food Bank’s Strategic Investment Fund. The program is a true partnership with LECOM and Arnot Health, in which patients with prediabetes are recruited and matched with LECOM students, with the goal of preventing the progression to diabetes.
Participants order food through an app-like program called OrderAhead. The orders are then packed weekly at the Food Bank and delivered to participants’ homes by LECOM students who also work with them on reaching their health goals.
The program also provides recipes, nutrition education, spices, and kitchen equipment to assist participants with cooking nutritious meals and exploring new foods and cooking techniques. In addition, the students also take biometric measurements for the participants to monitor their health and progress, including blood pressure and blood sugar tests.
Participants have the opportunity each week to share feedback on things like food choices and recipes, and as a result, the Food Bank has been able to improve the selection of foods.
Outgoing student coordinator Noah West cites the program’s appeal to his interest in sports nutrition.
“Someone came and spoke to the class about the program and I could see the benefits of a healthy lifestyle,” Noah says. “It’s nice to help households in the area. We have a big team of student volunteers who gather data and find new participants.”
According to Caitlin Price, the Food Bank’s Health and Nutrition Programs Manager, participant feedback has been excellent.
“Participants have shared that the program has really made a difference in their ability to access nutritious foods, and many have made great progress toward their personal health goals including walking more, reducing blood pressure, quitting smoking, and trying new recipes and foods,” Caitlin says. “It has been so great to see the relationships and the trust that has been built between the students and the participants.”
For Audrey Law, an outgoing coordinator, it’s not only program participants who are helped.
“I really enjoyed seeing the impact this program had on my fellow classmates,” she says. “It gave many students an opportunity to take on a leadership role as primary group contacts and also mentorship
opportunities as we brought on more first-years to the program. Health Meets Home gets us out of the classroom and into the community to do exactly what LECOM was put in Elmira to do, which is serve the local community.”
You can read this and other stories from around the Southern Tier in our quarterly newsletter, The Harvester, on our website.