HEALTHY EATING
Gardening & Farming: Examining the San Antonio Food Bank’s Farming Effort By Michael Guerra
Since 1980, the San Antonio Food Bank has served the emergency needs of food insecure residents across 16 counties of Southwest Texas. Known for helping individuals with groceries and meals, the Food Bank sets the table for 120,000 people a week. The groceries and meals are the anchor for the Food
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SAN ANTONIO MEDICINE • May 2021
Bank’s “food for today” strategy, the first rung of their 3-step effort to move individuals to self-sufficiency. The Food Bank’s second step up the ladder assists individuals with “food for tomorrow”: helping them enroll in public support programs (SNAP, WIC, etc.), and teaching
them all manners of healthy cooking and nutrition. Employing more than 30 people to help individuals navigate public benefits enrollment and more than a dozen registered dieticians and wellness experts, this is the largest effort of any food bank in these two program areas. The Nutrition, Health and Wellness Team works to promote healthy eating patterns and active lifestyles to improve the well-being of the community. This is done by educating the community through a variety of free classes and by promoting healthy eating through urban gardening and Farmers’ Markets. The Food Bank operates the largest Farmers’ Market Association in the region, conducting as many as 25 markets each month. Food is provided from Food Bank farming initiatives, as well as from local farmers. Individuals can use their Lone Star Card for produce. They can also get their produce purchase doubled by a special incentive program offered by the Food Bank. The markets offer seasonal fruits and vegetables. In addition, the farmers’ markets have nutrition demos showing attendees how to prepare healthy recipes from the items available in the market that day. The Health and Wellness team works in the community, teaching classes on a variety of topics: healthy cooking for kids, strategies for combating diabetes and obesity, effective grocery store shopping, extending your grocery budget and much more. Classes are free to participants and are offered in both English and Spanish, conducted in person and through virtual offerings. The Food Bank’s farming efforts take place
