Bruce's Blog

August 7^th, 2017

Five resource centers, including UCOM, are partnering with Access of West Michigan, Heart of West Michigan United Way, the Kent County Health Department, Heartside Gleaning Initiative, several local farms and other organizations to promote living healthy/eating healthy principles.

HAELFS is our acronym for Health, Access, and Equity in Local Food Systems. Our plan, which we have already begun to implement, includes

• Stocking our pantry with as much healthful food as we can.
• Purchasing food from local farmers that we can sell at a seriously discounted rate to people with self-declared low income. We can sell these products from our Farm Stand for SNAP benefits or cash.
• Placing colorful signs around the pantry and other program areas to encourage eating healthy and living healthy.
• Hosting a health corner display from Kent County Health Department featuring walking trails in our service area.
• Stocking even more donations of local healthy produce in our free food pantry area.
• Providing educational opportunities through intentional conversations with our neighbors about healthy living and healthy eating.
• Emphasizing regular diabetes and blood-pressure screenings at UCOM.
• Providing more exercise sessions, Stretch and Flex and Sit and Be Fit sessions all year.
• Offering more nutrition and healthy cooking/healthy eating instructional sessions.

Your donations of nutritious food, volunteer time and funds keep UCOM on the cutting edge, providing the best quality food and relevant food/fitness education for our neighbors. This builds on UCOM’s foundation of helping people to move toward more self-sufficiency. Your gifts are cutting medical costs, improving quality of life and increasing our neighbors’ access to the American dream.

UCOM only works because of U.

Our healthy food policy will be posted to the website soon. Stay tuned.

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