Prioritizing Food Security Makes Delaware Stronger

Treating food as medicine helps keep kids healthy and thriving

BY YVETTE SANTIAGO, MS, ALANNA DRAKE, MA, CHES, AND NA-TASHA D. WILLIAMS, MPA-MHR

WHEN IT COMES TO children’s health, we know that medical care represents only a fraction of a child’s well-being. The majority of what affects a child’s health are social drivers, such as education, safe environments, housing, and access to nutritious food.

Beginning in 2018, Nemours Children’s Health set out to get a better understanding of the social needs of the communities we serve throughout the Delaware Valley. We created and implemented a social needs screening tool to uncover what—outside of the doctor’s office—was impacting their health. Since that time, more than 35,000 families have voluntarily told us about housing concerns, food insecurity, lack of transportation and other challenges. We’ve taken that data and assessed it, and where possible, we’ve helped break down barriers to health, connecting families to the critical resources they need.

We know that healthy kids make healthy learners and grow into healthy adults, so we must ensure children and families have access to everyday necessities, and that includes nutritious food.

Part of our efforts include what we call “Care Closets.” We started with two Care Closets in Delaware and as part of a comprehensive commitment to the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, we plan to expand to additional primary care sites.

Care Closets are based at our primary care offices, and feature critical items such as canned goods, dry food items and other essentials. If a family identifies a need on their Social Determinants of Health screening survey, a care coordinator from the practice will reach out to see if any of the goods we’ve stocked can help.

Where do we get the supplies? Some are donated by local organizations or Nemours associates, some we buy, and some come from state government sources.

To reach our goal of creating the healthiest generations of children, we must also work to improve the health of children who may never come to us for care. That’s why we’ve committed to expanding our efforts to increase access to healthy food throughout Delaware and Pennsylvania.

We’ve signed agreements with Philabundance and Chester County Food Bank (CCFB) to step up our level of involvement in this space.

Through our work with Philabundance, which operates throughout the Delaware Valley, we help families address the “summer meal gap” by packing and distributing roughly 12,000 breakfast kits. The nutritious meals—with items such as oatmeal, whole-grain breakfast bars, milk, and juice—are distributed through 20 community partners across nine counties in three states.

With our partnership with CCFB in Chester County, Pennsylvania, families experiencing food insecurity can take part in a Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program. Food-insecure Chester County residents are identified and connected with fresh, locally grown produce. A prescription card is preloaded with an average amount of $400 redeemable at CCFB’s Fresh2You Mobile Market and other Fruit and Vegetable Prescription redemption sites.

In Delaware, the Nemours Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids (HFHK) program is the longest running and most proven school garden program, now working with more than 49 schools across the state and serving more than 21,000 students. In 2023, students at Carrie Downie, Eisenberg, Lancashire, and Maple Lane Elementary Schools harvested nearly 500 pounds of fresh vegetables.

The Latin American Community Center (LACC) in New Castle County, in partnership with Nemours, manages the purchase of supplies and distribution of produce to their community members. This can be accomplished through direct purchase of food from a supplier, or through alternate programming such as the development of a healthy recipe booklet, small-scale farmers markets, or other similar programming that will provide fresh produce to families. In 2023, LACC distributed more than 11,000 pounds of food to more than 500 families.

Be it through the CCFB, Philabundance, the Nemours HFHK program, the LACC, or Saint Agnes Church, which serves the needs of low-income and homeless communities in West Chester, Pennsylvania, our goal is to meet families and kids where they are, filling in gaps to ensure children in our area have healthy meals to eat.

Our goal at Nemours is to go well beyond medicine to help children reach their full potential by creating a strong foundation as youth grow into adulthood. Treating food as medicine is essential for keeping Delaware’s children happy, healthy, and thriving.

Yvette Santiago, MS is director of community engagement and Alanna Drake, MA, CHES is project manager of community engagement at Nemours Children’s Health, Delaware Valley. Na-Tasha D. Williams, MPA-MHR is population health specialist at Nemours Children’s Health.