The Columbia Gorge Region where I live is a vast rural area larger than Connecticut but with a population of only 75,000. While many people here are doing well, others live in poverty, or have to drive long distances to get to a doctor’s office. In this land of fruit orchards, one in five people regularly run out of food.
Mandi Rae Pope was once one of those people. A few years ago, during a difficult pregnancy at the end of her husband’s graduate studies, Pope says she was “counting pennies out of a Mason jar to pay for gas.” She struggled with migraines, and they were getting worse. In the midst of all that, our local Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program gave her a prescription for Veggie Rx, a program we started to provide free fresh fruits and vegetables to people struggling with food insecurity. This was a top concern that community members had identified. By using Veggie Rx, Mandi Rae was able to provide fruit to her toddler son, and the more nutritious diet also helped tame her migraines. Grateful for the help, she wanted to pay if forward and expressed an interest in promoting the program.
What happened next exemplifies how we tackle health problems here: by reaching out to include everyone and engaging with people in an authentic way. In this case, a community health worker invited Mandi Rae to be part of a focus group that was giving participants cameras to document their experiences with Veggie Rx. In the focus group discussions she attended, Mandi Rae felt the community health worker moderating the sessions was really hearing the struggles that participants expressed, and then used what she heard to help them get the services they needed.
[For more on this story by Paul Lindberg, go to https://www.rwjf.org/en/cultur...community-first.html]
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