Erie Family Health Center

Erie celebrates the first days of summer with the new Henson Garden Initiative Program

The season of summer has finally arrived here in Chicago –and Erie Family Health Center does not plan on wasting a single moment of this balmy, beautiful weather. Recently, a few Erie employees volunteered their time to help break ground on the new Henson Garden Initiative Program, a part of Erie’s Health and Wellness Program at Erie Henson School Based Health Center. This program aims to promote healthy lifestyles to children living within the North Lawndale community through education on healthy eating and the importance of physical activity.

The Henson Garden Initiative is just one facet of the Henson Health and Wellness Program. The Henson Garden Initiative, which is an after school program for the students of Henson, will help children increase their knowledge of nutrition through planting and managing a garden. Since the children will be helping to assemble the garden and grow the produce, the garden will not only serve as an opportunity for education but also as an opportunity for physical activity. Children will also be able to share the information they’ve learned about healthy living to their peers through classroom presentations. Children will be sent home with produce from the garden as well as recipes to prepare with their parents at home. Any additional produce will be donated to the emergency food pantry at Henson, which help teach the students an important lesson on giving back to their community.

There are many benefits to exposing children, especially children living in urban areas, to information about healthy eating. “Exposing children to where their food comes from, how it grows and why it’s important to eat healthy foods allows them to be informed and empowered about making healthy choices,” says Elizabeth Mendoza, an Erie AmeriCorps Health Educator.  “When this information is presented at a young age, the children are then able to get a healthier start in life.”

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Erie Family Health Center’s outreach services bring Erie’s mission into the community

If you want to witness some of the exceptional services Erie Family Health Center provides, all you have to do is take a seat in  an Erie waiting room.  You’ll see patients moving in and out, taking with them a reassurance they’ve found a place that truly cares about their health.  If you wander throughout the clinic, you’ll see case managers working diligently alongside patients, educators teaching about the importance of exercise and healthy eating, providers listening to patients’ stories, and support groups learning and offering guidance to one another.

The amazing thing about Erie is that these wonderful services extend beyond the Erie walls. Outreach workers travel throughout Chicago communities to schools and social service agencies, educating and informing Chicagoans about a variety of health issues. By informing others on topics such as oral health, HIV/AIDS, depression, wellness and many others, these outreach workers not only teach participants about how to improve their health, but also spread the word on how Erie Family Health Center can help guide them to a healthier life.

Lauren Ranalli MPH, Manager of Community Programs, sees Erie’s outreach program as a vital part of bringing the message of health into Chicago communities.  “Outreach presentations are a great opportunity for Erie to engage with community members,” says Lauren. “They are a way for us to tell Chicago residents about the comprehensive programs and services offered at Erie.”

Outreach services also offer audiences the chance to focus on a particular topic or facet of their health. Whether it’s demonstrating the proper way to exercise, giving a cooking lesson, or using models to demonstrate the pathways of medication, presentations take a new spin on standard health lessons. “Participants at our outreach presentations can increase their knowledge on a new health topic, such as how to better manage their diabetes or protect themselves from contracting HIV.  They can also gain a new skill, such as how to talk to their child about sexual health or how to read a food nutrition label,” says Lauren.

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Erie Beats

More than 678,000 people in Chicago and Cook County, including 250,000 children, receive emergency food each year. In an effort to reduce hunger in their own community, Henson Elementary School, located in North Lawndale, is working to bring nutritious food options to neighborhood families. Teaming up with the staff of Erie Henson School-Based Health Center and the Greater Chicago Food Depository, the school hosts a program called Healthy Kids Distribution, providing healthy food choices to the families of students in need.“This program aligns perfectly with Erie’s mission to increase access to resources that shouldn’t be considered privileges, but as human rights in an effort to lead a healthy life” says Tiosha Goss, Erie’s Coordinator for School Based and Oral Health Programs. “Furthermore, it supports Erie’s mission to provide resources to those in need.”

Tiosha assists with program outreach and supports the program’s food pantry volunteers during days of food distribution. Working with community agencies, Henson parents, AmeriCorps volunteers, Erie support staff, and Chicago Public School staff, she helps ensure the program’s goals stay at the forefront of their operations. The program offers family-focused services, encourages healthy eating and living, and aims to provide a minimum of 50 families with healthy foods at no cost to them. “There are many things that I enjoy about working with the program,” Tiosha says. “Getting to know the families that come to the distributions and playing an integral role in providing an invaluable resource to the community.”

Indeed an invaluable resource to the residents of North Lawndale, the program held its first distribution in March of this year following a needs assessment that found access to food in the community scarce. Already central to the community’s youth and their families, the school agreed to take on the important role of housing a permanent community food pantry. Every two weeks a delivery of assorted food items from the Greater Chicago Food Depository reaches the school’s team of six to twelve volunteers. These volunteers not only prepare the food pantry for operation, but also actively assist customers with their shopping and clean up after distribution. Fresh produce, grains such as pasta and rice and proteins like peanut butter and beans are set up to resemble a grocery store, making it easier for customers to select food items based upon their preference and need.  Item quantity limits are set by the Food Depository, who covers the cost of the food needed to run the program for the first year.

“Currently, we only serve Henson families. We are seeking to open distribution up to the North Lawndale community as a whole,” Tiosha says. In further efforts to involve the community and reduce hunger, Erie Henson School-Based Health Center, located within the school, hopes to start a new program to empower North Lawndale youth to give back to their community. Called the Healthy Garden Initiative, Erie would give a group of Henson students the tools to start a community garden and grow vegetables such as peppers, lettuce, and carrots. Parents of the students will be invited to participate and the proposed garden will donate any surplus vegetables to the Healthy Kids Distribution food pantry.

“Having a gardening program would provide a hands-on opportunity for students and teachers to really drive home the importance of healthy eating, a major goal of the food pantry,” says Tiosha. “And the gardening program could be used as a tool to further engage parents and educate them on a cost-effective way to provide healthy eating options for their family.”

Beats this week:

1) In September you will begin to see health clinics in Targets throughout Chicago and the suburbs. This announcement follows the expansion of health clinics in CVS and Walgreens stores across the country. 

2) Earlier this week, community health centers received some exciting news: the Corporation for National and Community Service decided to fully fund the Community HealthCorps at the requested level for the very first time. With uninsured patient visits up by 21% at community health centers, the $6 million in funding for Community HealthCorps will help to meet this intense demand for care.

3) Celebrity chefs recently took on a challenge: they ate lunch at public schools in the DC area. Through this experience they all came to the same conclusion: schools lunches lacked nutrition, variety and taste. Now months later, these chefs are taking action by teaching cooking classes to students and parents and getting on the front lines for the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative.

4) We are a little late to the news on this one but last month Australian researchers released a study that found a link between diabetes and family history. The study was fairly basic: they took families with and without history of diabetes and overfed them. The results were very interesting, with those with a family history gaining more weight on average and demonstrating a greater resistance to insulin.

5) This week Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the release of $83.9 million in grants to support the expansion of health information technology. Erie was thrilled to be among the list of grant recipients, accepting on behalf of the Alliance of Chicago Community Health Services.

Beats this week:

1) This week has been a busy week for health care reform. On Sunday, the House passed health care reform and sent the bill to President Obama’s desk. On Tuesday, the President signed the bill, which will provide up to 32 million individuals with health insurance.

2) The health care reform bill is over 2,400 pages and contains a few lesser known provisions. Some highlights include: chain restaurants and vending machines will have to post nutritional information and companies with at least 50 employees will have to set aside “reasonable” break times for nursing mothers and create private spaces for breastfeeding. To read more about the bill, check out Beats Per Minutes post this week.

3) It was reported this week that Chicago Public School officials are moving to revamp the school lunch program. Starting in June, schools will eliminate or reduce the availability of unhealthy food options, such as nachos, doughnuts and Pop-Tarts.

4) The Illinois Supreme Court handed down a decision this week that was met with great disappointment for many nonprofit hospitals in the state: hospitals that are designated nonprofit must provide certain levels of charitable giving to their patients in order to maintain their nonprofit status.

5) Who are we kidding?! The only thing being talked about this week is health care reform! Let’s skip the back and forth politics, though, and check out the video of President Obama signing this historic legislation.