Shown (from left) with Food Rx fresh produce boxes are Alison Rian, Aitkin Farmers Hub; Emma Arnold, Riverwood clinic intern; and Rachel Johnson, population health program manager at Riverwood.
For those looking for community resources and don’t know where to begin, Riverwood Healthcare Center now offers two new ways to find support through Riverwood Connects.
Find Help is an online tool to help locate community resources such as food, housing, transportation and more. To use this tool, go to www.riverwoodhealthcare.org and click on Riverwood Connects, just below the homepage photo banners. This link takes visitors to a page that asks for a zip code and then brings up a page with community resources categories, including food, housing, transportation, education, health, work and more. For the Aitkin zip code of 56431, Find Help connects to 1,945 programs.
Each category lists specific kinds of help. For example, under “food”, find food delivery, food pantry, help pay for food, meals and nutrition education. Under food delivery, a local program that comes up for Aitkin is the NAPS (Nutritional Assistance Program for Seniors) program that distributes non-perishable food to seniors, administered by Aitkin County CARE.
Filters for household size, age, income, urgency and more allow users of Find Help to customize a search to best meet their needs. Find Help enables access to financial assistance, food pantries, medical care, and other free or reduced-cost resources in communities across the United States.
Another new program that Riverwood launched this summer is Food Rx. This program provides patients and their families access to fresh fruit and vegetables through a collaborative effort with the Minnesota Department of Health, Aitkin County SHIP and Aitkin Farmers Hub.
Riverwood clinic patients are screened for food insecurity issues with two questions. Within the past 12 months, have you worried whether your food would run out before you got money to buy more? Within the last 12 months, has the food you bought not lasted until you got money to buy more?
Those who qualify for the Food Rx program can receive a weekly Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share of fruits and vegetables grown by local farmers, plus Riverwood Connects Market Bucks to spend at the Aitkin Farmers Market Hub.
To learn about eligibility for Riverwood’s Food Rx program, contact Natalie Braden, outpatient services coordinator, at nbraden@rwhealth.org or 218-927-2121, ext 8281. Also see more information on Riverwood’s Nutrition web page at https://riverwoodhealthcare.org/services/nutrition/, which has a link to the Food Rx registration form: https://form.jotform.com/231785799619074
“Both Find Help and Food Rx are offered under our Riverwood Connects umbrella,” explains Rachel Johnson, population health program manager. “Together with our community partners we are aiming to connect individuals and families to local resources that can help improve health and a better quality of life.”
