Access to healthy and nutritious food like fresh fruits and vegetables may be too expensive and simply out of reach for many of our Northland neighbors in need.
In an effort to make these foods more accessible to families, children and seniors in NE Minnesota and NW Wisconsin, Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank has recently launched two new health related initiatives.
Thanks to a $15,000 grant from Essentia Health and in-kind support from Super One Foods, Second Harvest transformed its traditional food shelf into a healthier model. The food shelf offers ample fresh produce, merchandises healthier food on eye level “healthy eater’s shelves” and at its entrance, offer two for one incentives on nutritional choices and recipes. The concept is to make the healthy choice the easy choice for individuals and families who utilize the program.
“Essentia Health is proud to partner with organizations like Second Harvest to support healthy choices at our local food shelves,” said Ron Alston, Vice President of Community Health, Wellness and Engagement. “Making a healthy difference means meeting people where they are in the communities we’re privileged to serve.”
In addition, Second Harvest launched a #GiveHealthy Food Drive platform which allows those interested in hosting food drives to raise healthy foods. This web-based platform, which can be found on the food bank’s website (northernlakesfoodbank.org), provides on-line tools for area individuals and organizations to host healthy food drives.
“Nutrition is an important part of our goal to create a healthy and hunger-free Northland,” said Shaye Moris, executive director of Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank. “Although we recognize that we play only a supplementary role in the dietary needs of many of our neighbors— it’s important we’re able to offer healthy and nutritious choices.”
Over the last year, Second Harvest has rescued and distributed 5.5 million pounds of food or enough food for 4.4 million meals. Over two-thirds of this food met the “My Plate” five food group building blocks and as much as 28 percent (over 1.3 million pounds) was fresh fruits and vegetables.
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