HMCP Supporting Underserved Communities

Did you know that food insecurity affects over 12% of all American households? That equals over 17 million Americans. Many of these families report ‘trade-off behaviors’ such as skipping meals or essential medicine to provide food for their children. In fact, many food insecure homes are not elegible for assistance programs because their wages fall over the threshold, though they continue to struggle. 

Unfortunately, there are several myths that falsely circulate, such as families that seek out assistance programs don’t want to work, or that assistance programs can be easily accessed. There has been vast research that has been done to show that these myths are untrue. 

At Healing Meals, over 75% of our families receive their healing meals for free or at a significantly reduced rate because of need. Many of our families report food insecurity as well. Over the past few years, through partner programming with Hartford Healthcare, The City of Hartford, and the Hispanic Health Council, to name a few, we have been supporting many more families living in underserved communities. As part of our healthy meal program, we provide nutrition and wellness education so that our families can gain sustainable knowledge in how to eat a healthy diet. Our hope and intention is to affect not only their family’s health but also the health of generations that follow. 

Here is a comment from a client that participated in one of these programs: 

“Usually when I would eat, I would like go into a food coma and I would (be) knock out. I did not feel that after I would eat the (delivered) food… And this time.. I had more energy. I would be awake and I would be able to do things.”

Here is a comment from a mother in our prenatal program discussing how she has changed how she feeds her children:

“I don’t give her (my baby) any sugar. I give her a lot of fruit. I give her a lot of vegetables too. I even give her things that I’ve never tried before that I’m trying now as well, like mushrooms.”

To learn more about food insecurity, check out this article by Carissa Raymond from U.S. Hunger.