In January, Helping Harvest Fresh Food Bank received a two-year $200,000 grant from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation to initiate a new Food Rx program model that offers healthy food options to pregnant or postpartum individuals in Berks and Schuylkill counties. The new Maternal Health Program is designed to provide healthy food options that support maternal and child health.
Helping Harvest staff, with input from its Youth Advisory Committee, spent the first half of 2024 engaging with organizations, medical offices and direct service providers that serve pregnant and postpartum individuals to help identify the level of need. Focus was placed on developing a nutritionally balanced food package and each agency’s capacity to distribute food assistance. Helping Harvest determined a shelf-stable box of food, complemented by fresh produce bags where feasible, would be the best way to reach the largest number of food insecure pregnant and postpartum individuals.
The Helping Harvest Maternal Health Food Box is modeled after The Maternal Outreach Through Telehealth for Rural Sites (MOTHeRS) Project of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, an emergency food box that complements the WIC food package.
Each food box contains 16 nutrition-dense items. Helping Harvest also provided 300 bags of fresh produce to several community Baby Shower events and WIC Anniversary events in Berks and Schuylkill counties as part of the grant program.
The need for the Maternal Health program is significant. In July, with the support of numerous volunteers during PA 250 Day, Helping Harvest successfully packed 1,000 boxes for distribution. These boxes are being sent to partner locations across Berks and Schuylkill counties which work closely with pregnant and postpartum individuals.
The organization reported that one WIC office distributed 40 boxes in just one week. The goal is to reach even more pregnant and postpartum individuals with these boxes, which contain nutritious, shelf-stable foods such as canned fruits and vegetables, old-fashioned oats, peanut butter, canned proteins, and toasted oats cereal-all of which are essential for supporting maternal health.
In addition to providing nourishing food, the Maternal Health Program has increased food assistance referrals from OB/Gyn offices and assists pregnant and postpartum individuals in applying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP offers low-income individuals a monthly supplement that can be used to purchase nutritious food at grocery stores or supermarkets.
Jay Worrall, President of Helping Harvest, commented, “We’ve made it part of our strategic plan to increase and provide better nutrition to children during their brain development years. The Maternal Health grant helps us achieve that goal by ensuring a healthy start for children while supporting maternal health both during pregnancy and postpartum.”
Helping Harvest Fresh Food Bank is the leading provider of food to people in need in Berks and Schuylkill Counties, PA. Helping Harvest delivers food to over 350 distribution locations in Berks and Schuylkill County, and last year provided over $16 million in food to 110,000 residents in our community. Helping Harvest is a member of Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization.
