Community Health and Nutrition
In our efforts to address hunger as a health issue, we continue to expand our innovative programs. Our Nutrition Policy, Growing Healthy Pantry Toolkit, Food is Medicine initiatives, and Health Care Partnerships ensure that we tailor our food offerings to meet our neighbors’ health needs and cultural preferences.
Our Community Health and Nutrition initiatives include Nutrition Policy, Growing Healthy Pantries, Food is Medicine and Health Care Partnerships.
Nutrition Policy
In alignment with CFBNJ’s 2024-2027 strategic plan, we have developed an organization-wide nutrition policy. This policy serves as a clear communication tool, ensuring our staff, partners, neighbors, suppliers, and donors all understand our intentions and decision-making around the food we provide.
At the heart of this policy are three core pillars: nutritional value, health considerations, and cultural considerations and food preferences.
By aligning our food offerings with these principles, we strive to have a positive and lasting impact on our community’s well-being. This nutrition policy will guide our decisions and ensure we remain true to our mission of providing nourishing, accessible, and dignified food choices for all.
Growing Healthy Pantries
Funded by the Horizon Foundation for New Jersey and Feeding America, the Growing Healthy Pantries Initiative is a partnership between the state’s five food banks (Community Food Bank of New Jersey, Food Bank of South Jersey, Fulfill, Mercer Street Friends, and Norwescap) to help our pantry partners become spaces that distribute nourishing food and have a positive impact on individual and community health.
To support this effort, the five participating food banks have collaborated to develop a comprehensive toolkit of best practices for our pantry partners. This toolkit provides “how-to” guides and resources tailored for pantries of all sizes, covering a range of content areas and strategies that pantry partners across the state can work through to achieve healthier and more nourishing spaces.
“A healthier New Jersey starts with good and healthy food. The tens of thousands of New Jerseyans who rely on the nearly 1,000 food pantries across the state that are served by these five food banks will now have new resources, information, and tools to help them become healthier and more food secure. This is truly an example of a partnership in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Through Growing Healthy Pantries, we are bringing together the organizations that have been at the forefront of feeding New Jersey and New Jersey’s largest and most trusted health insurer to magnify the impact we have, improve food security, and promote greater health equity.”
JONATHAN R. PEARSON, HORIZON’S DIRECTOR OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE HORIZON FOUNDATION FOR NEW JERSEY
Food Is Medicine
CFBNJ firmly believes in the power of food to promote the health and wellbeing of our communities. That’s why we’ve launched our “Food is Medicine” initiatives to provide our neighbors with access to medically tailored foods and related support services.
NourishWell
Through partnerships with healthcare organizations the NourishWell program brings free health screenings for diet-related diseases such as diabetes, prediabetes, and hypertension, as well as nutrition education and benefits application assistance to our neighbors at participating pantries. We also work closely with our network of pantry partners to ensure they are equipped to provide medically tailored groceries that meet the unique dietary needs of the communities they serve.
Medically Tailored Meals
Students from CFBNJ’s Food Service Training Academy prepare a five-day menu of heart-healthy, medically tailored meals for low-income seniors being discharged from the hospital as part of Trinitas Medical Center’s Care Transitions Program. We are initiating pilot projects to expand the reach of our medically tailored meals program in the coming year.
Healthcare Partnerships
Women’s Wellness Pantry at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center
After years of providing summer meals for kids, nutrition education, and SNAP application assistance, we opened the onsite Women’s Wellness Pantry at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. Located at the hospital’s Rev. Dr. Ronald B. Christian Community Health and Wellness Center, it serves patients from the Women’s Health Center with nourishing food, nutrition education and other resources. We also worked with RWJBarnabas Health facilities to open an onsite Women’s Wellness pantry in New Brunswick.
Pantry at the Plex with AtlantiCare
This onsite food pantry is located in downtown Atlantic City that serves both patients and the broader community. Neighbors are invited to choose the foods they want to take home and can be connected directly to health care providers including social workers and dietitians.
RWJBarnabus Saint James FQHC Healthy Food Farmacy
To help address issues of health equity, access to care, and health outcomes in the City of Newark, RWJBarnabas Health, Saint James Health, and CFBNJ collaborated to open a Food “Farmacy” serving patients of Saint James Health Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in the Ironbound section of the city.
The Food “Farmacy” is a healthy food pantry offering fresh produce, refrigerated food and shelf-stable food to improve access to healthy food in a geographic area identified as a food desert. As part of the program, a registered dietician provides nutrition counseling, culturally relevant, healthy recipes, and education to help participants learn how to cook and eat healthfully to improve chronic conditions and to understand why healthy eating is important for overall health and well-being.
Inspira’s Food Farmacy+
To truly improve the lives and enhance the health of our patients, neighbors and community members, Inspira teamed up with the Community FoodBank of New Jersey to open a food farmacy at Inspira’s health center in Bridgeton.
Inspira’s Food Farmacy+ program is a resource for patients who face food insecurity, The program uses food as medicine, connecting patients with a registered dietician to receive nutritious food that is personalized to their medical needs. The program includes regularly scheduled meetings with a dietitian to help develop healthy eating habits. Nutritious food is provided for up to one year, including frozen meats, dairy, fresh produce and non-perishables.
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