Through Hands On Atlanta’s special partnership with the Atlanta Community Food Bank, we’re able to support some really strong nonprofits focused on food insecurity. While many organizations focus on keeping bellies full, one special partner – Grady Food As Medicine – is taking a different approach. Their unique program is designed to ensure patients with chronic illnesses have their nutritional needs met, in an affordable way, which is absolutely crucial to their recovery.

We got to chat with Jasmynne Blacks, Food Pharmacy Manager of the Grady Food As Medicine program, to learn more about how they’re helping patients recover in a holistic way, and how volunteers keep the program up and running.

Sign up here to volunteer + support Grady’s Food As Medicine program.

Claire, Hands On Atlanta: Serving with the Grady Food as Medicine program has been a favorite of our volunteers since you all became a Hands On Atlanta partner a couple of years ago. But this is my first time visiting you in person! What’s the story here, where are we?

Jasmynne, Grady Food As Medicine: This is the Jesse Hill Market! This was a vision that Grady employees had, for the space to become a place of wellness for both patients and employees. We realized that about 50% of our patients are food insecure. Meaning, they’re struggling with access to food, especially fresh produce. And with our background in nutrition, we understand the need for patients to have access to this food, and also the resources and knowledge. Patients are referred to us from Main Grady, after being screened for food insecurity + a few chronic illnesses that would qualify them for participation in the year-long program. We don’t want to just provide food and expect them to figure the nutritional aspects out on their own, we want to give them tools + resources to be successful. Patients attend cooking classes, nutrition classes and also pick up from the Food Pharmacy. During the classes, they learn how to cook to produce and how to become an advocate for themselves – learning their numbers and how to set goals.

“We don’t want to just provide food, and expect them to figure the nutritional aspects out on their own.”

Claire: ‘Prescribing food’ seems like a natural compliment to prescribing medicine and a physical therapy routine, but I haven’t heard of it before. How has it made an impact on patients? Can you speak to results or recovery rates at this point?

Jasmynne: Yes, it’s huge! This is what keeps us going, hearing patient stories. Tomorrow we actually have a graduation! It’s a time to celebrate patients who made a year long commitment to changing their life. Many of them are breaking habits they’ve had for 50, 60 years. We measure things like A1C – certain rates lead to a lot of complications like heart disease, kidney disease and other risk factors. We’ve seen this go down from 10.5 to 5.5. We’ve seen patients be able to go off blood pressure medications. Some have been able to reduce insulin, as their blood sugar goes down. Classes can get emotional as patients reflect back on where they started. Many patients and employees are not just changing their own diet habits, but also those of their families. It’s a big impact.

Claire: You all need about 160 volunteers per month to manage distributions across 4 locations in the city, right? What’s the experience like for a volunteer?

Jasmynne: It’s our 3rd year of running this program, and this program would not run without volunteers. We really mean it! Hands on Atlanta has been pivotal in our program continuing to run, and all volunteer opportunities can be found here. Here at Jesse Hill, we’ve got the Food Pharmacy, and at neighboring clinics we’ve got the Fresh Food Carts. The Fresh Food Carts are massive food distributions in one day, through a partnership with the Atlanta Community Food Bank. These are monthly, at Asa Yancey, Brookhaven, and Ponce – we get lots of produce, and our volunteers are bagging and distributing food. The Food Pharmacy is similar, but food is distributed multiple days weekly. We put together about 150 bags of food every Wednesday. We have fun in the Food Pharmacy, and keep the energy up with a great playlist! Grady employees help out here a lot, too. We currently have about 500 patients in the program, who pick up weekly!, but we’re only a staff of 5, so volunteers are so crucial.

Claire: Oh, wow. And then on top of that, you all also have the Teaching Kitchen here at the Jesse Hill Market.

Jasmynne: The Teaching Kitchen is where patients take classes – and they correlate with available produce at the Food Pharmacy and Fresh Food Carts. Patients get a demonstration and then they’re actually cooking on their own skillet, learning about seasonings and ingredients and modifications. Volunteers are super interactive with patients here, and there’s a required Orientation first. Sometimes there’s 10-15 patients in a class, and it can be a lot for our one teacher to ensure everyone is following along and being safe – so volunteers make a big impact at classes.

Claire: Anything exciting on the horizon for Grady Food As Medicine?

Jasmynne: We’re working on expanding the program! We really want to zone in more on food insecure patients and employees, even those who aren’t affected by the chronic illnesses we’re currently working with.

Claire: Last question… what’s your favorite recipe taught in the Teaching Kitchen?

Jasmynne: Black bean brownies! We were not believers, but then we tried it! They are SO good!