Pediatric Team Launches Program to Bring Healthy Foods to Those Who Need It

Left to right: Jeffrey Gander, MD, Assistant Professor, Pediatric Surgery; Amy Wrentmore, MD, Associate Professor, Pediatrics; and Tegan Medico, Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist

11.25.2020

Pediatric Team Launches Program to Bring Healthy Foods to Those Who Need It

By Amy Preddy Hughes
Photos by Kay Taylor

A team at UVA Health recently launched a food insecurity project to help pediatric patients and their families. Partnering with Local Food Hub’s Fresh Farmacy program, Jeffrey Gander, MD, Assistant Professor, Pediatric Surgery; Amy Wrentmore, MD, Associate Professor, Pediatrics; and Tegan Medico, Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist, launched the initiative to bring regular deliveries of fresh produce to in-need families.

How the Program Works

Patients who visit the Battle Building will be screened using a food insecurity tool. Identified families will be invited to receive biweekly shares of fruits and vegetables at no charge.

Fresh Farmacy provides shares of fresh produce, like the ones pictured here, which include scallions, strawberries, zucchini, and more.

Gander hopes to start with 10-20 families. The cost to support them is $30 per share. So far, over $8,000 has been raised – enough to launch the program and continue it for several months, but more funds will be needed to support the families into the future.

The team has applied for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant and is waiting to hear back. Donations are also being accepted on the UVA Health Fresh Food Program fundraising page.

Left to right, Lashanna Hicks, Clinical Social Worker; Olivia Obertello, Pediatric Hepatology and Endocrinology Clinical Dietitian; and Maria Christy, Dietetic Intern, support the project by identifying families, collecting metrics, and counseling on nutrition.

How It Started

The project is a year and a half in the making, Gander says. He was inspired by a question posed to him during a pediatric surgery conference in 2019: “What are you going to do in your community?”

Gander began thinking about the work he does and the struggles he sees through that work: in particular, childhood obesity.

When Gander asked one of his patients about his diet, the patient responded that he relies on “whatever the cafeteria served” at school and a lot of pizza. “Nowhere in there was fresh food,” Gander says.

Gander partnered with Wrentmore and Medico to find a way to introduce healthier foods into their patients’ diets. They were motivated by the idea of food as medicine and recognized that diet is often an underlying cause of many of their patients' diseases.

“All of us are in a profession to help people and care for people – a healing profession,” Gander says. “We owe it to our patients as part of our care for them to make sure that they have nutritious food. That may be even more powerful than some of their medications. Think about this fresh, healthy food as a way to treat their diseases.”

After brainstorming and testing various options, the team created the partnership with Fresh Farmacy.