TEXARKANA, Ark. -- Harvest Regional Food Bank, in partnership with CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System, now offers specialty food boxes for individuals in Texarkana with high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular issues.
The Prescription Healthy Food Box Program has been in development for several months. Each box is tailored to meet patients' dietary needs, including diabetic-friendly foods, foods low in sodium and other approved foods.
"We started with the support of the CHRISTUS Fund, which is the giving foundation for CHRISTUS Health," said Camille Wrinkle, Harvest's executive director.
The goal of the program is to serve low-income patients.
"This is a way to serve people where they are and improve their health while giving them access to nutritious foods," Wrinkle said. "We hope this is just the beginning of the program. But right now we're starting with a targeted group with the CHRISTUS Health System."
Harvest, CHRISTUS and the Bowie County Health Department hope to replicate the program and get additional funding to expand the program.
The CHRISTUS Clinic identifies patients who qualify for the program and refer them to Harvest to enroll.
"They have access to two healthy food boxes a month, in addition to whatever fresh produce and vegetables we have on hand," Wrinkle said. "And every three months they go back to visit their doctor again and measure their health outcome to see what improvements have been made."
The program aims to measure patients' health throughout the year to track effectiveness.
"The concept of this program is that food is medicine," Wrinkle said. "This program means a great deal to me. We just want to serve food-insecure individuals throughout our community."
For more information, call 870-774-1398.