Building A Successful Partnership Starts with a Shared Vision

During the inaugural 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) and the Milken Institute made a worthwhile and serendipitous connection, just by sitting next to each other at a satellite event for the conference.

Both NACDS and the Milken Institute’s Feeding Change (Feeding Change), shared a common vision to make Food Is Medicine easily accessible to all. Together, with NACDS’ expertise on pharmacies and Feeding Change’s expertise on food systems, the opportunity to explore how pharmacies could be leveraged to advance access to Food Is Medicine became a natural fit for collaboration. NACDS believed in the power and potential of pharmacies to bring nutrition interventions to scale – like the much-needed care pharmacies provided during the pandemic, most notably scaling to give 340 million COVID-19 vaccinations to Americans.

At the same time, Feeding Change’s familiarity with how stakeholders work together in the Food Is Medicine space was essential to evaluating the role of pharmacies in this space. “From the very start, we bonded over our shared commitment to advancing public health – and moving fast to drive toward positive change,” said NACDS President and Chief Executive Officer Steven C. Anderson, FASAE, CAE, IOM. “It was very clear early on that we had aligned goals – we wanted to fill a gap in what had been studied and implemented to date.”

The two organizations ultimately decided to collaborate on a joint commitment for the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities to build a movement where pharmacists are key care partners in improving health across communities by facilitating nutrition security. As part of this commitment, Feeding Change, with support from NACDS, released a report in June 2024, "Catalyzing Action for Pharmacist-Provided Food Is Medicine Care", providing background, insights, and actionable recommendations for pharmacies and key stakeholders, including policymakers, and the public and private sectors, to deliver Food Is Medicine care. This Action Plan offers 12 recommendations, supported by 34 actions, that would facilitate the integration of pharmacies and pharmacists into a patient’s care team to improve the impact of these interventions.

“This partnership underscored the many different benefits of organizations coming together with a shared goal and synergizing complementary networks,” said Holly Freishtat, the senior director of the Milken Institute’s Feeding Change. “It’s been phenomenal! We started off with a project and now we have built a long-term relationship with more opportunities to collaborate, now and into the future.”

The NACDS and Milken Institute are continuing to work together, including on a new project to explore opportunities to accelerate sustainable pharmacy-based care models to advance public health.

NACDS is also leading a consumer-oriented initiative -- a public education campaign, #NourishMyHealth (www.nourishmyhealth.org),that highlights the connection between food and health, urging Americans to get baseline health screenings and increase their intake of nutritious foods. The campaign has garnered 180 million impressions and nearly 11,000 responses to a nutrition security screener through engagement of key partners, including national health organizations and NACDS member pharmacies.

It takes many different partners across sectors to make change possible. The CDC Foundation’s Hunger, Nutrition and Health Action Collaborative aims to foster more synergistic partnerships like this that will continue to build healthy communities, fight hunger, and improve nutrition in the United States.

“Collaboration among all stakeholders is about building a movement, and bringing together these two important networks accomplished that for the role of pharmacies in Food Is Medicine,” Freishtat said. “The Hunger, Nutrition and Health Action Collaborative has the potential to launch many more movements.”

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For more information, please visit: Catalyzing Action for Pharmacist-Provided Food Is Medicine Care | Milken Institute

Dion's Chicago Dream

In just three years, Dion’s Chicago Dream is coming true. This organization, which was created in 2020 to bring fresh produce to those experiencing food insecurity in the Chicago area, started out providing 80 to 90 lbs a week to a single community refrigerator on Chicago’s south side. Today, this staff is delivering more than 55,000 lbs of fresh, healthy produce to 42 out of 77 neighborhoods in Chicago every month.

Dion Dawson, who is the founder and Chief Dreamer, said that the “Dream Team” is addressing health equity through food insecurity that centers on the experience of the recipient. With logistics and last-mile delivery as the demonstration project, this innovative Chicagoland organization is reimagining the inner workings of the food system. They’re off to a great start and constantly look for ways to maximize impact in transformative ways for the organization. For instance, Dion’s Chicago Dream has workforce development embedded into the organization. Instead of utilizing donated food and volunteers, the organization only delivers food that it has bought and uses paid employees. This has already resulted in the creation of 25 jobs, all paying more than $20 an hour. Within the next 18 months, Dion expects the organization's size and scale to double, mirroring the trend seen in the organization’s first three years. He also knows his organizational model will work beyond Chicago, so a big part of his plan is to connect to other states and offer the same services.

So, how are the Chief Dreamer and Dream Team getting fresh fruits and vegetables to all these neighborhoods? They’ve created several ways to make healthy foods accessible to the communities. The Dream Deliveries program provides underserved households with five days' worth of healthy food options, immediately moving a household from food insecure to food secure. Dream Deliveries has provided more than 200,000 lbs of fresh produce to the doorstep of nearly 6,000 residents every week. The Dream Vault is a network-enabled locker that customers can access weekly with a unique electronic code to get a Dream Delivery box of fresh groceries containing five days’ worth of pre-measured fruits and vegetables. The Dream Team members stock the bank of lockers daily with each set of lockers having the potential to provide food security to almost 175 households within a one-mile radius. The newest offering is Dion’s response to the lack of big-box options in food deserts, poverty rates and lack of fresh grocery options. At its height, the Dream Vault provides households (within a radius) a safe, dignified, clean place for produce pickup and creates foot traffic for big-box companies who’ve invested and anchored their business in these neighborhoods.

“It is extremely important that we continue to look at what could be instead of what’s been,” said Dion Dawson, Chief Dreamer. “We should always be able to meet this ever-growing need of food insecurity. We need to reimagine the food system and remember that the biggest assets are the people we serve. At Dion’s Chicago Dream, we will meet this need and continue to Feed Families, Create Community & Fuel Hope.”

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KABOOM!, Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation

In September of 2023, the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation (ELP) announced their ambitious plans to partner with Oakland Unified School District and KABOOM! to transform 25 schoolyards throughout Oakland by the end of 2026 as part of an effort to give Oakland kids access to safe and quality places to play, nutritious meals and quality reading resources.

As part of KABOOM!’s efforts to implement the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, KABOOM! not only wanted to develop their own stand-alone commitment but also bring in trusted partners that could help expand the scope of this important work. Eat. Learn. Play. shares the same goal of expanding access to physical activity in an equitable manner, and their commitment to eliminating food disparities also made them an especially compelling partner to help achieve the goals. A joint effort between the organizations under the banner of a shared commitment to the National Strategy made sense. “Our partnerships in Oakland are showing us what’s possible when we dream big and work together for the health and joy of our kids,” said Lysa Ratliff, CEO of KABOOM!. “Committing to building strong minds and bodies through play is what this work is all about and investing in them is the most important thing we can do for our collective future."

*Noah Graham (@noahgphotos) for Eat.Learn.Play.*

This commitment is critical for kids in Oakland because it helps meet one of their most fundamental needs: active play. When you talk to school leaders, families and kids, everyone appreciates the importance of spaces where young people can experience joy, connection, and growth. This is especially true in a community like Oakland where green spaces and playgrounds are few and far between due to disinvestment and systemic racism. Neighborhood conditions are one the primary drivers of health outcomes, and KABOOM! views this work as helping address one of the many social determinants of health: access to safe, high-quality spaces for play. Playgrounds encourage vigorous physical activity, making them an important and successful public health tool.

“This has been transformative for the community. Caregivers are actively participating in developing the play space and educators feel that it has infused joy in a space that lacked a little bit of joy,” said Jennifer DeMelo, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships & Organizational Innovation, KABOOM!. “The impact it has on children and families is phenomenal. Activities like basketball camps are increasing and the evidence is indicating this new play space is doing exactly what we had hoped it would do.”

For more information, please visit: KABOOM! Works Nationally to Achieve Play space Equity and Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation(eatlearnplay.org)☯

Dole Packaged Foods, The Boys & Girls Club of Central Mississippi and Merced County, Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation and the Partnership for a Healthier America

Is it possible for 10-year-olds to become ambassadors for healthy eating in their communities? The Boys and Girls Clubs of Jackson, MS, and Merced County, CA, think so. With new programs piloting in these two cities that are strikingly similar, yet worlds apart, kids are getting the chance to learn cooking skills using healthy recipes. To make it even easier, the healthy foods are readily accessible in the “Good Stuff Kiosk” for parents to buy the ingredients for cooking the meal at home—the icing on the cake is that it also brings families together.

Merced County has a largely Hispanic population, while Jackson has a largely Black population, both with high obesity rates. While it is hard to imagine people experiencing hunger in America where there seems to be an abundance of food, the toll of hunger and food insecurity disproportionately impact underserved communities, communities of color, low-income families and rural Americans. There are generally food access issues, where there isn’t a grocery store in proximity and healthy foods, like fruit and vegetables, are costly for many families. So, it is not surprising that we see high rates of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease in these communities. But now there is a group of partners ready to change that.

“Fifty percent of our children in Merced County are overweight or obese,” said See Lee, CEO of the Merced County Boys and Girls Club. “We knew if we didn’t address their physical health first then they wouldn’t be around long enough to grow up and enjoy a successful life.”

The Dole® Packaged Foods sponsored KIDS COOKING CAMP classes in Jackson, which are made up of girls and boys of all ages, teaches cooking and baking with healthy recipes that increase intake of fruits and veggies, and makes it easy for the kids to bring recipes home that the families can make together. Dole’s Sunshine for All Cities program has been transformative by providing the chefs, cooking equipment and food needed to teach the kids and get them excited about cooking, which is no small feat.

“Generally, in the inner-city communities, cooking isn’t something they have time to do. The single parents opt to pick up fast food every night—it is cheap and easy,” said Nichole Mooney, Founder of Black Girls Cook who is working with the Sunshine for All® Cities program at the Boys and Girls Club in Baltimore. “The kids are able to take the recipes home and it teaches them about being mindful about eating fast food or salt intake, this helps develop their skills as they age and may be at higher risk for chronic diseases.”

We know that healthier foods are generally more expensive and maybe not as easy to access for people living in these communities, so where does the healthy food come from? Enter Partnership for Healthier America and the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation. These organizations are invested in giving and creating equitable access to nutritious food, particularly for families in underserved communities. Both of these organizations recognized the progress and change the Dole’s Sunshine for All® Cities program is delivering. From the KIDS COOKING CAMP classes in Jackson, Baltimore and Merced to the Good Stuff Kiosk pilot programs in Boys and Girls Clubs in Jackson and Merced providing healthy foods at lower cost, countless people are encouraged and hopeful that change is possible. The kids are learning healthy recipes in cooking class and when parents pick up their kids, they have the access to the kiosk to buy all the foods needed to bring it home to cook together.

The Sunshine for All® Cities program has exceeded everyone's expectations. The opportunity to potentially install Good Stuff Kiosks in over 5,000 Boys & Girls Clubs has the potential to provide access to healthy foods for millions of kids and families throughout the country. And, partnerships have been key to making this program a success. Additional grants from the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation make this an excellent example of how working together to empower youth and their families with access to good nutrition, as well as access to knowledge, resources and skills to generate brighter futures.

“The program is an ambitious, coordinated, national effort designed to create sustainable solutions to address the health and wellness inequities that face countless kids and families every day,” said Barbara Cocks, executive director, Dole® Packaged Foods Sunshine for All® Cities Program.

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For more information about these organizations, please visit:

Sunshine For All Cities

Good Stuff Store

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About the Commitment

Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi commits to expanding on the Good Stuff Kiosk program, launched as a pilot in Jackson, MS and Planada, CA. Funded by the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation and Dole Packaged Foods, the Good Stuff Kiosk has an assortment of key staple items, both shelf-stable and refrigerated, priced for families in under resourced communities, located at community hubs where they're already going to pick up children from after school activities, and combined with nutrition skill education through cooking classes and recipes and cooking tips from a website featured on the Kiosk. We will pilot additional Kiosks in the coming year, connect families with nearly 3 million additional servings in 2024, and expand to additional Boys & Girls Clubs locations. Further expanding the commitment, we will begin piloting the Good Stuff Kiosk at convenience stores in an attempt to reach families through the more than 150,000 convenience stores in the US. Beginning with a convenience store chain of around 150 stores in 2024, we'll learn and scale the program to reach 6.6 million families by 2028 providing a billion more servings in some of the same under resourced communities we're already working in. Based on learnings to date, this commitment overall could add more than 4.2 billion servings of healthy food to the food system by the end of 2028.

Work in Action

How We Are Making a Difference

The commitments to end hunger are from organizations large and small working to make an impact in communities across the country. These highlights are a few examples of the dedication and determination it takes to make a difference in the lives of people who experience hunger and food insecurity and are on a journey to a healthier life.

Building A Successful Partnership Starts with a Shared Vision

Dole Packaged Foods, The Boys & Girls Club of Central Mississippi and Merced County, Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation and the Partnership for a Healthier America

Dion's Chicago Dream

KABOOM!, Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation

Mass General Brigham

In March 2023, Mass General Brigham opened the Revere Food Pantry. This new food pantry was not only to supply food to those in need, but also a teaching kitchen designed to serve as an educational opportunity for both adults and children. Here, they are learning the importance of preparing nutritious and delicious meals with ingredients readily available at the pantry.

Shipt

In communities struggling with limited access to healthy food options, Shipt joins in to support 10 local retailers through the LadderUp program. As part of the LadderUp program, Shipt not only lends their retail experience, but also donated $5,000 in individual grants to the 10 retailers in areas designated as a food desert. In addition, the program has a focus on diversity and inclusion with 60 percent of the retail stores owned by individuals who identified as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and/or LGBTQIA+.

Instacart and the Military Family Advisory Network Partner to Support Military Families

Instacart, the leading grocery technology company in North America, and Military Family Advisory Network, a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting military and veteran families, recently announced a partnership to provide free groceries and delivery to military families upon relocation to U.S. Army Fort Cavazos. The partnership will provide over 100 military families with $100 in monthly Instacart Health Fresh Funds stipends for three months after relocation to the Army base in central Texas.

Nemours Children’s Health

Nemours Children’s Health published a social determinants of health playbook, which aims to improve providers’ ability to effectively screen patients and connect them to social services. The tool allows providers to integrate hunger screening into routine and acute care of patients.

The International Fresh Produce Association

The International Fresh Produce Association’s investment of $10,000 supported the request of the Urban School Food Alliance and other school nutrition directors to create low-sugar school breakfast recipes that feature a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. This will help schools meet USDA’s proposed added sugar targets. Family version recipes for schools to send home with families are also being explored.

Tyson Foods

Tyson Foods invested more than $1 million in the Feeding America Network to increase the types of packaging food banks can take. Tyson reported their investment increased packaged donations from 19 million pounds in FY22 to 34 million pounds in FY23.

UTHealth Houston Partners with Brighter Bites to Evaluate Produce Prescription Strategy

As part of the White House commitment to Hunger, Nutrition and Health, UTHealth Houston and Brighter Bites non-profit organization, are partnering together to implement and evaluate the impact of a comprehensive produce prescription strategy consisting of access to fresh produce plus nutrition education for implementation among food-insecure children and their families through school-based health centers. There are more than 3,200 school-based health centers across 48 U.S. states with over 7 million children receiving primary care at these clinics. The initiative will start in Texas with partners such as Legacy Community Health, the largest Federally Qualified Health Center in Texas. With the national footprint of Brighter Bites, the produce prescription approach will be scaled so that it is available for implementation across school-based health centers nationwide.

Vertical Harvest Partners with the Food Bank of Wyoming

Vertical Harvest, an indoor vertical farming company that grows and distributes healthier foods to communities, is now partnering with the Food Bank of Wyoming to deliver fresh foods to organizations fighting food insecurity. The partnership has led to almost 225 pounds of fresh greens being delivered to Lander Share and Care Food Banks since these two organizations launched a pilot donation program. Through the pilot, greens arrive twice a month and are fresh within a day of harvest. They also come with recipe and educational materials from the Cent$ible Nutrition Program, Wyoming’s SNAP-Ed and TEFAP Programs.

Image of a smiling volunteer holding ears of corn in both hands

We Can All End Hunger

Achieving this goal will require collective action. Whether you are a government entity, business, foundation, academic institution, association or individual, you can play a role in this critical effort.

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