Three UMass Medical School students launched a “prescription” program for free, fresh produce for patients at the Worcester Family Health Center, according to an article in the Telegram & Gazette.
Second-year medical students Elizabeth Rosen, Kathryn Bailey and Rachel Erdil started the Farm to Health Center Initiative in July, offering free vegetables and fruits to hundreds of families on Thursday mornings at the health center to help address the high level of food insecurity among patients. The Community Harvest Project in Grafton, a non-profit farm that grows food for area food banks, has provided thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables and fruit for the program.
"The less-expensive food tends to be calorie dense and nutritionally poor. You get a lot of fat and sugar, but not a lot of vitamins," Rosen told the Telegram.
The program has been enormously successful, with hundreds of families turning out for the food. This past Thursday alone, 1,200 pounds of food was distributed in just 35 minutes.
Read the full Telegram story, below.
Telegram: Worcester health center hands out fresh produce to low-income families
