Through This First-of-its-Kind Program, Eligible Families Will Receive Prepaid Debit Cards to Address Food Insecurity and Enable the Purchase of Healthy Food
This press release was issued by About Fresh.
Contact: Michele Fox, michelefoxpr@gmail.com
Boston, MA - About Fresh, a company dedicated to advancing social innovation at the intersection of food and healthcare systems, today announced a partnership with No Kid Hungry, a campaign of Share Our Strength, an organization committed to ending hunger and poverty. Through About Fresh’s Fresh Connect program, participants will receive a prepaid debit card to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, which can be used wherever the participant shops. With a focus in rural communities, this program seeks to improve access to fruits and vegetables for households with children aged 3- 17 who are members of any Medicaid Health plan and who live in, or whose healthcare provider is in Washington, Tangipahoa, St. Helena, St. Landry, Acadia, or Lafayette parishes. There are no income guidelines for eligibility. No Kid Hungry is the first Louisiana area organization to offer the Fresh Connect program for families.
Since 2013, About Fresh has designed and created several programs to connect families with nutritious food. One of these programs, Fresh Connect, is a tech-enabled food prescription program that addresses health disparities by enabling healthcare providers to prescribe fresh produce, often referred to as a “food as medicine initiative.”
The goal of this program is to increase fruit and vegetable intake and improve food security for 600 participating children and their families. Families enrolled in the Fresh Connect program will receive debit cards to buy $40 worth of fresh produce each month. To learn more about the program, visit HealthyFamiliesProduceRx.org.
“We know that access to nutritious food in childhood and adolescence is critical for health, development, learning and overall well-being,” said Sarah Mills, Senior Manager for Health Systems at No Kid Hungry. “Through this partnership with FreshConnect we are ensuring more Louisiana kids have convenient access to the healthy foods they need to thrive.”
“Nothing is more important than ensuring families, especially children have access to the fresh, healthy foods vital to their wellness,” said Josh Trautwein, Co-founder and CEO of About Fresh. “About Fresh is honored to be serving on this mission alongside No Kid Hungry.”
This program received funding from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) program. The primary goal of the GusNIP Produce Prescription Program is to demonstrate and evaluate the impact on the improvement of dietary health through increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, as well as the reduction of individual and household food insecurity, and the reduction in healthcare use and associated costs.
About No Kid Hungry
No child should go hungry in America. But millions of kids could face hunger this year. No Kid Hungry is working to end childhood hunger by helping launch and improve programs that give all kids the healthy food they need to thrive. This is a problem we know how to solve. No Kid Hungry is a campaign of Share Our Strength, an organization committed to ending hunger and poverty. Join us at NoKidHungry.org.
About "About Fresh"
About Fresh is dedicated to advancing social innovation at the intersection of food and healthcare systems. Their Fresh Connect platform is the newest venture, consisting of a prepaid debit card platform that enables world-class healthcare organizations to cover the cost of food for the people they serve across a national network of 10,000 grocery retailers. In the latest measurement of Net Promoter Score (NPS), the Company achieved a rating over 80 from its Fresh Connect product users, achieving the "world class" classification. Please visit www.aboutfresh.org to learn more.