ProduceRx program to feed 440 families

LiveWell Greenville has partnered with Prisma Health and Mill Village Ministries’ FoodShare program on a new produce prescription program funded by the USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP). 

Eligible patients are Prisma Health System’s Pediatric Patients residing in Greenville county who 1) indicate they are experiencing food insecurity and/or are being seen for nutrition or diet-related health concerns and are Medicaid eligible. 

Participating families will receive up to 12 months of fresh produce via FoodShare Greenville’s bi-weekly produce box program. Families will have the option of pickup at the central FoodShare drive through location or free home delivery of boxes via Door Dash’s Project DASH program. Over the three year grant period, the program will enroll up to 440 families through Prisma’s Pediatric Food and Housing Resource Navigator. Volunteers will distribute fresh produce boxes to these families every other week over the next three years.

This USDA FoodShare program is one of only a few South Carolina counties to get this funding. “While this program has been around for a long, long time South Carolina had not had a funded project yet. The hope is through that course of that nine months to a year, families are getting closer and closer to being more food secure, having better access to healthy foods throughout the year” –Sally Wills

“Our main distribution hub is in Nicholtown, which is the most food insecure census track and Greenville County,” said Anna Baumgartner, the FoodShare Program Director at Mill Village Ministries.

The Greenville County Food Insecurity Index in partnership with LiveWell Greenville’s Food Security Coalition, Furman University’s Institute for the Advancement of Community Health, and Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities identified 22 areas of the county with high rates of food insecurity. Mill Village Ministries already serves many of them. Now, they’ll be packing the boxes for this program.

Even if you don’t qualify for this program you can get involved. The same FoodShare boxes with a grocery store value of $30 can be purchased for $5 with SNAP benefits. And they’re $20 for anyone else. You can also volunteer to distribute. For more information, click here.

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