One in three children living in Bronx, New York, face food insecurity, with inconsistent access to the healthy foods they need to live an active life.
Building off screening efforts to identify patients who fall into this category, the Children's Hospital at Montefiore is launching a pilot program in partnership with Stop & Shop and About Fresh.
Called Fresh Connect, it will provide prepaid debit cards to families to buy fresh fruit and vegetables at local Stop & Shop stores. This is made possible with a $75,000 grant from Stop & Shop, the first major retailer in the country to partner with About Fresh.
Since 2013, About Fresh has designed and created programs to connect families with nutritious food. One of these programs, Fresh Connect, is a tech-enabled food prescription program that addresses health disparities by enabling healthcare providers to prescribe fresh produce, often referred to as a "food as medicine initiative."
Last year, Stop & Shop rolled out the program at its stores in Massachusetts and expanded to all 400+ Stop & Shop locations across its northeastern footprint. Since its launch, Fresh Connect cardholders have conducted tens of thousands of transactions at Stop & Shop. Now CHAM is the first New York area hospital to partner with Stop & Shop and offer the Fresh Connect program for Bronx families.
"We talk with our families regularly about the importance of a healthy diet, but we know that many of them have difficulty finding and affording high-quality produce," said Suzette Oyeku, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.P., chief, Division of Academic General Pediatrics, Children's Hospital at Montefiore and professor of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in a statement. "Through this new partnership with Stop & Shop and About Fresh, we will be able to help families buy healthy foods and hope to instill sustainable habits that can help decrease risks for chronic health conditions like diabetes, obesity and heart disease."
The six-month pilot program will support approximately 100 families identified by pediatricians and Community Health Workers through Montefiore's social needs screening.
The families selected for the Fresh Connect program will receive debit cards to buy $100 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables each month at Stop & Shop stores. This new program comes at a crucial time. Over the past few months, millions of Americans who receive SNAP benefits lost additional payments that were temporarily provided during the pandemic.
"As a major food retailer with a strong presence in New York City, we recognize the important role we play in improving access to healthy and affordable food for our communities," said Gordon Reid, president of Stop & Shop, in a statement. "We are proud to partner with the Children's Hospital at Montefiore to be the first to bring the Fresh Connect prescription produce program to the Bronx to help our neighbors struggling with food insecurity gain more access to fresh, high-quality foods that support their health and wellbeing."
Related: SNAP Benefit Restrictions Reduce Household Spending; Certain Food Categories Face Higher Prices.