Thursday, February 13, 2025

A Box of Love: Tackling Food Insecurity Among Sentara Home Care Patients

(Sentara Stories)

HAMPTON ROADS — Sentara Home Care and the Virginia Peninsula Foodbank (VPF) announced they have joined forces to deliver free food to vulnerable seniors across the Virginia Peninsula, including Hampton, Newport News, and Williamsburg.

For the program, VPF drops off 50 boxes of food each month to Sentara’s home care offices. A clinician is then able to pick up a box and bring it with them when they visit a patient’s home. The patient doesn’t have to pay for the box.

“I look at it as a box of love,” said 81-year-old Hampton resident Virginia Whitesel. “For me it’s not just a freebie box. It means a lot. To not to have to go to the grocery store and try to shop, it’s a big help.”

VPF is currently the only foodbank in Virginia partnering with a health system to deliver food to home care and hospice patients, according to Sentara.

“The responses to the food boxes are always overwhelming,” said Joyce Hodges, a home health aide with Sentara Home Care, “I’ve literally seen people that don’t have anything in their refrigerator. Partnerships like this matter because we have a community that we’re here to serve and we can serve in more ways than one.”

Patients who can’t drive to the grocery store are often eligible to receive the free box of food, according to Sentara. Clinicians also use a questionnaire to determine whether or not a patient is food-insecure.

Whitesel usually has a cup of coffee and a yogurt in the morning, and it isn’t until her neighbor brings her dinner at night that she truly eats a full meal.

Virginia Whitesel looks through the box of food she received in July. (Sentara)

“For people that are like myself who are alone and are hurt and live on a very small income, it means everything to get something like this,” said Whitesel.

The 25-pound box of food is meant to last for a month and includes non-perishable items such as boxed and dehydrated foods, meats, fruits, vegetables, pasta, and plant-based proteins, Sentara said. The food is designed to meet the dietary needs of seniors, particularly those managing diabetes and hypertension.

“I’m a good old southern girl, so I like my grits,” said Whitesel, who adds that the box has encouraged her to eat more. “If I get hungry in the daytime, I can go in there and fix me a little something. It has packages of turkey and tuna, things that are simple that you can have right away.”

Whitesel is also impressed with the carton of shelf-stable milk and said, “It’s unreal you can have milk sit on the shelf and not even worry about opening it until you’re ready to use it.”

A 2022 report by Feeding America showed there are over 61,000 food-insecure people in the Virginia Peninsula region, which makes up 11% of Virginia’s food-insecure population.

“Our patients may have lower socioeconomic status and multiple generations living in one house, so financially things are a little tricky,” said Mary Hansen, regional administrator for Sentara Enterprises. “Not everybody knows that there are resources available.”

In the first five months of the partnership, Sentara said clinicians have delivered 150 boxes to patients equaling 3,750 pounds of food.

“We’re definitely wanting to continue this partnership,” said Renee Figurelle, chief operating officer of VPF. “Everybody deserves access to healthy food, and this is a new avenue for us to do that.”

Once a patient is discharged and no longer receiving home health services, they can still get food from the VPF, according to Sentara. Those who are homebound can request DoorDash deliver the food.

For more information about home care services and resources, visit Sentara Home Care ServicesSentara Health Plans, or Virginia Peninsula Foodbank.

Related Articles

MORE FROM AUTHOR