Mobile Grocer Partners with American Heart Association to Battle Food Deserts on West Side
The American Heart Association (AHA) and Crisp! Mobile Grocery (CMG), an affordable mobile grocer initiative sponsored by Catholic Charities partnered on an effort to tackle the food desert crisis on Chicago’s west side with a kick-off event at Loretto Hospital, 645 S. Central Ave., on Nov. 21 where community members received an informative presentation about the impact of unhealthy eating habits and how to utilize Crisp! Event goers were also treated with a free nutrition and food demonstration by Chef Judson Todd Allen, personal chef to Steve Harvey.
“We are very, very interested in the community health and the initiative as far as wellness driven from a community mission so we joined the American Heart Association, the American Stroke Association, to bring forth the information to the community so they can make better decisions,” said Ill. State Rep. Camille Lilly (Dist.-78th), vice president of external affairs and development at Loretto Hospital. “We offer up our facility, we offer up our staff, we offer up our resources to make sure our community knows what’s a healthier heart and what it takes. Today we talked nutrition, we talked about preparation of food, we talked about what are good meals and what are not so good meals.”
The goal of the initiative is to increase the number of meals prepared and eaten at home, while increasing the accessibility and the amount of fruits, vegetables and other healthy food options.
“The American Heart Association partnered with Crisp! to enhance our programs in our communities and to address what are considered food desert areas. We’ve been doing nutrition education but we have not been focusing on increasing access and consumption to those items,” said Santrice Martin, Health Equity Director, American Heart Association. “Crisp! agreed to assist us with increasing that access and consumption with healthier food options.”
By 2020, the AHA’s goal is to have improved the cardiovascular health of all Americans by 20% and also reducing deaths and cardiovascular disease and stroke by 20%. According to the AHA, African Americans lose one third of their potential life in years compared to Caucasians due to cardiovascular disease. African Americans also have the highest likelihood of stroke among all ethnicities.
As part of the initiative, Crisp! offers its customers a catalog of food options which utilize produce from farms in southern Illinois that are shipped directly to consumers once their orders are placed, according to Hyzy. Additionally, Crisp! offers to host Simple Cooking with Heart Demonstrations where requested to educate communities throughout Chicago on how to buy, eat, and cook healthy meals. Attendees at the Simple Cooking with Heart Demonstrations receive $10 vouchers for Crisp!
“Crisp! Mobile Grocery works with communities in Chicago that have little to no access to healthy food,” said Mike Hyzy, Crisp! Business Director. “We deliver straight to the customer’s door within 48 hours of placing their order online or by phone.”
Mildred Wiley, an Austin resident in attendance at the event, hoped the initiative would create a great selection of healthy food choices within the budget of all Austin residents. Wiley noted that fresh meats were a particularly difficult item to secure within the community.
Wiley’s concerns are valid. The Austin community is one of 29 food desert communities throughout the City of Chicago, according to the AHA. The AHA defines a food desert as a neighborhood where residents have to travel more than a mile to the nearest grocery store.
“Being the largest African American community [in the City of Chicago] and not having all of the food resources and best eating habits, lends [the Austin community] to having the kind of health problems that we have,” said Ald. Deborah Graham (29th Ward). “We need to really, really work hard at raising awareness, changing our eating habits, as we continue to address food deserts. We can do that through a number of ways by creating community gardens, encouraging a lot of measures around there and giving the stores the type of incentives to come to our community.”
For more information about Catholic Charities, visit www.catholiccharities.net. For more information about the American Heart Association, visit www.heart.org. For more information about Loretto Hospital, visit www.lorettohospital.org.
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