Second Harvest Food Bank highlights 'food as medicine' in Legislative Service Day

LORAIN — 'Food is medicine' was the message Second Harvest Food Bank hoped to instill on state, local and federal legislators on Friday. During the organization's annual Legislative Service Day, elected officials representing Lorain, Crawford, Huron and Erie counties heard from the food bank and local healthcare partners on the role access to nutritious food plays in the health of an individual and community. Mercy Health — Lorain President Dr. Gilbert Palmer, Lorain County Health and Dentistry President/CEO Ben Kosewski and Cleveland Clinic community relations manager Marcus Madison spoke on the barriers to food access and programs in place to help bridge the gap for patients. Barriers to accessing healthy food range from transportation — a well-documented shortfall in Lorain County — to simply lacking a refrigerator. Food access is just as critical as a prescription, Kosewski said. Health and Dentistry's six sites throughout the county serve patients' dental, vision, primary care, women's health and pharmaceutical needs, he said, and 24 years worth of data shows a disturbing trend in some health outcomes. Of the 18,000 patients it serves each year, about 6,000 are overweight or obese — putting them at greater risk for other health issues, he said. Coupled with Lorain County Public Health's community health assessment, it is not a pretty picture. "People are dying of things they don't die of anymore," he said. Deaths from diabetes, heart disease, stroke and infant mortality rates have remained disproportionately high for the county's Black community, according to the assessment. "I don't mean to bring a somber tone," Kosewski continued, "but we can turn a corner. We do that through partnerships." Those partnerships include work with Second Harvest Food Bank to address food access through its mobile distributions and local partner pantries, he said. Reflecting on Mercy Health's mission to work in poor and underserved communities, Palmer said food concerns were high on health needs. All three service providers connect patients to food options, either through in-house pantries or other service providers. Any support from elected officials was a bonus, Palmer said. Madison expanded on the Cleveland Clinic Avon's food pantry model, which provides patients with bags of food that fit their dietary and nutritional needs at discharge. The Clinic is working with Mercy Health and University Hospitals to expand its model, as well as adding other resources like clothing and eyeglasses to provide wraparound care. Kimberly Hazelgrove, Second Harvest's government relations and advocacy manager, asked panelists what message they had for the room full of legislators before them. Palmer said healthcare workers are not in this for the money, but for the mission to serve and implored attendees to help take down barriers to address needs for medication, food and transportation. He also touched on individuals who fall through the cracks in the government benefit system — families who do not qualify for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, but face food insecurity. "We want to help, we want to do what we can, but we need to do it together as a family," he said. Kosewski said there must be a shift to improve outcomes at a generational level, rather than "fighting fires day in and day out." He said healthcare providers do not want patients to end up in the ER with complications from a disease that could have been prevented years ago. Hazelgrove touched on recent and upcoming changes to federal food benefits and the importance of those programs to Second Harvest and the families it serves. Federal cuts to emergency food assistance and changes to work requirements, as well as an upcoming shift to cost-sharing that will put more of the food benefit burden on states, are major concerns for the nonprofit and communities it serves. She implored attendees to be advocates for SNAP benefits and oppose harmful policies and restrictions that can limit families' access to food, and look to expand options such as allowing recipients to purchase prepared foods like rotisserie chickens to better serve seniors with limited cooking ability or working families with time constraints. "There's no one magic bullet that is going to fix all of this for us," she said. "The one thing we have to remember is the lowest point of stability in communities is food access. The times people cannot feed themselves and their families, that is when they become unstable." Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.