By Jamie Kelly, Bulletin Editor
An Allegheny Health Network program that helps ensure patients have access to healthy food is looking for volunteers.
The nutrition assistance program offers AHN patients who are facing food insecurity access to a healthy food center once a month for six months. The centers offer patients an opportunity to stock up on two to three days worth of groceries, according to Megan Davis, who works at the West Penn Healthy Food Center.
The centers offer shelf-stable options like low-sodium canned vegetables or low-sugar canned fruit, as well as frozen meat and some fresh produce.
One way the West Penn center has been able to offer fresh options is the addition of a garden a couple of years ago.
“We expanded the program to grow our own food,” Davis said.
The garden is located in a lot behind the School of Nursing and yielded 740 pounds of produce last year.
That contributed to getting food to as many as 250 people a month, including patients and their family, according to Tori Beggs, Healthy Food Center project manager. The West Penn location is the busiest of the six centers.
The garden project has proven successful, and to help it grow, AHN is looking for volunteers to help as garden stewards.
“It’s another set of eyes and ears in the garden,” Colleen Ereditario, Healthy Food Center program manager.
Volunteers would put in a few hours a week and would help with weeding and harvesting, as well as making sure animals and insects aren’t damaging the crops.
“we wanted to promote it to the community to see if there might be interest in helping,” Ereditario said.
To learn more about volunteering, email tori.vallana@ahn.org or colleen.ereditario@ahn.org.