“We believe it’s so important for people to have access not just to food, but to nutritious food, and we find that almost everybody really wants it and enjoys it,” said Mark Thompson, co-founder of The Picnic Project in Sanford, a feeding partner of Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, and one of the most recently certified nutritious pantries in a growing network.
Everyone having access to nutritious and healthy food is a cornerstone of the food bank’s core mission and the catalyst to the development of the Nutritious Pantry Network program. A nutritious pantry is a feeding partner that is committed to implementing practices that support neighbors’ access, choice, and use of nutritious foods.
To be part of the growing network of nutritious pantries, the feeding partner offers full or partial neighbor choice, encourages neighbors to try healthy foods, provides nutrition education resources or classes, and offers other resources related to social determinants of health, such as SNAP benefits, housing and more.
“We’re not trying to reshape the pantry,” said Ann Aicha St. Cyr, Second Harvest’s Health Promotion Manager. “We’re building on what they already do.”
Nine of Second Harvest’s feeding partners are certified Nutritious Pantries, and more are already in the queue for next year.
A focus area for the Nutritious Pantry Network feeding partners is increasing the availability of fresh produce for neighbors and offering a variety of options.
The Picnic Project has a farmers-market-style, walk-up distribution on Friday mornings, and all the available produce options are displayed on a sign, along with recipe suggestions for each.
“We like the dignity of it, that folks get to choose,” Mark said, explaining that he has been continuously surprised by what neighbors get excited about. “Very few things have been hard sells. Like eggplant – we’ve been through thousands of pounds of eggplant this year.”
He said the Nutritious Pantry Network is a welcome improvement because it benefits the health of the community through food and through health partners.
In addition to fresh produce offerings, The Picnic Project hosts a nutrition class each month that features a cooking demonstration and a guest speaker to discuss a health topic. The local health department frequently attends and provides referrals and on-site health testing.
“We want to make sure everyone has food, that they know what to do with it when they have it, and we can try to eliminate some of the systemic things that led to them needing food in the first place,” Mark said.
Anecdotally, Mark has seen improvements to the health of neighbors, particularly those with chronic illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure.
With your support, the Nutritious Pantry Network is one way Second Harvest Food Bank is impacting the health and wellness of the Central Florida community.
