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To find out if patients at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, New Hampshire, are struggling with food insecurity, nurses ask them:

In the past 12 months, have you worried whether your food would run out before you got money to buy more?

In the past 12 months, has the food you bought not lasted, and you didn't have money to buy more?

To someone who can easily afford healthy food, the questions are striking, said Marc Guillemette, the director of the Office of the Catholic Identity for the hospital.

"We're trying to help folks where that's a worry," he said.

For the past six years, Catholic Medical Center has partnered with a food pantry run by the Parish of the Transfiguration, a Catholic church about a mile from the hospital, to offer a preventative food pantry. Catholic Medical Center patients who are identified as food insecure and who have chronic health conditions such as diabetes or congestive heart failure that call for specialized diets get a referral to visit the pantry. It is the first of its kind in the state.

Volunteers at the pantry, run from the church basement, make sure patients get boxes of food tailored for them and their families twice a month. Depending on the patient, the food in their boxes might be low in sodium, sugar and fat. The foods could be gluten-free or made with whole grains. For everyone, there are fresh fruits and vegetables and lean meats.

As of the end of May, the pantry had served 446 patients out of 557 referrals. Separately, the hospital set up a pantry at the church for its own employees in need of food assistance. The hospital gives taxi vouchers to people who need a way to get to the pantry.

An easy partnership
Catholic Medical Center's mission is "to carry out Christ's healing ministry by offering health, healing and hope to every individual who seeks our care." That includes access to healthy food options. The hospital notes that 14.9% of Manchester's residents live below the federal poverty level and one in 14 face hunger on a daily basis.

The preventative food pantry launched in 2018 after the director of the New Hampshire Food Bank, a program of Catholic Charities New Hampshire, approached Catholic Medical Center about the concept. The program is based on one located inside Boston Medical Center.

Guillemette was part of a committee that explored the issue, but determined there wasn't enough space at the hospital. The committee knew the Parish of the Transfiguration already had a pantry, and the hospital already had a relationship with the church through its parish nurse program.

"So it made perfect sense to reach out to them," Guillemette said.

The church's food pantry has been running since the 1990s. During the 2008 recession, it served more than 150 families a month.

"We knew that they would be able to handle the volume to serve these patients," Guillemette said.

Improving health
The hospital got a $10,000 grant from the Bishop's Charitable Assistance Fund of the Diocese of Manchester to buy an industrial size refrigerator and freezer and to store foods at the pantry. At the start, the hospital's employees donated $10,000 through its Gift of Heart Campaign, and they have continued to donate since.

As part of the referral to the food pantry, the hospital's dietary staff craft shopping lists and menus and give nutrition consultation to patients. The parish nurse program provides blood pressure and weight checks, and the nurses in that program say they have seen improvements among patients.

Tim Brockway is the pantry's director. After a career in the grocery business, Brockway began volunteering at the pantry about 13 years ago. He had served as a store manager for a grocery store chain and as a purchasing agent and customer service supervisor for a grocery wholesaler.

"I know food well," he said.

Brockway began running the food pantry shortly after he began volunteering there. When Catholic Medical Center leaders approached him, he said they were considering opening their own pantry within the existing pantry, possibly adding their own staff and infrastructure. Brockway thought it would be easier to incorporate the two pantries, keeping names and needs in the same database.

He sits down with everybody the pantry serves to determine their needs and situation. Among those who rely on the pantry are immigrant families from Ukraine, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nepal, and other nations.

 

"We have quite a variety of nationalities, and we do our best to help them," Brockway said. "Google translate is probably one of my best friends."

 

He listens to their stories and hears about individual preferences and needs. "I can learn more by listening," said Brockway.

In addition to collaborating on the preventative food pantry, the church pantry works with the hospital's Health Care for the Homeless Program of Manchester. Part of that program is to provide items that are easy to open and shelf stable, such as canned goods with pull tabs.

Brockway points pantry users toward more sources of aid such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also known as SNAP and WIC. He'll advise them to go shopping at stores only after they've picked up their boxes of food for the pantry, so they can supplement and plan.

"It's expensive to eat healthy," he said.

'Plenty of good food'
Volunteers pick up food from grocery stores or distributors and pack the items into banana boxes, which are sturdy and have handles. "The world revolves around banana boxes," Brockway quipped.

Other volunteers staff distribution days twice a week and hand out more than 120 boxes of food per month.

People who aren't referred from the hospital and come to the pantry solely through the parish also benefit, because the food it stocks is generally healthier than what is given away at other pantries, he said.

Guillemette said after seeing the success of the preventative food pantry, the New Hampshire Food Bank and its suppliers began to make more low-sugar and low-sodium items available. "So it's impacting the entire state," he said.

Brockway said he hears from weight loss patients about pounds they have shed, but he generally doesn't get feedback about health improvements otherwise. Guillemette also hears only anecdotal evidence but says Catholic Medical Center clinicians see value in the program and continue to refer people.

Bob and Dianne Wilson began visiting the pantry about three years ago, after Bob Wilson had open heart surgery and was referred by the hospital. Both have noticed health improvements, but the visits make their hearts happy in other ways.

"Tim and all his workers are super," said Bob Wilson, 80. "You're on a first-name basis. There's plenty of good food. There's never any trouble. If I've forgotten my appointment, it doesn't bother Tim in the least. I get rescheduled. It's definitely an awesome experience, every time I go."

"Everyone says hi, everyone has a smile," said Dianne Wilson, 73.

She said she often makes spaghetti pie, pasta salad, fresh salads and other foods with the items from the pantry.

She teared up as she spoke about an area in the pantry where people can pick and choose things that they want beyond what's in the prepacked boxes. She says sometimes she feels bad taking food that could go to other people, but Brockway always encourages her and her husband to help themselves, she said.

Brockway often reassures people who have never had to ask for help or visit a food pantry.

"That's probably the longest talk that I have with people," he said. "I explain that whatever their situation is, they've helped people along the line in their lifetime, now it's time to accept a little bit of help from other people.

"And that's what we're here to do."