The New Produce RX Manual: Our Journey To Make Healthy Eating Accessible

With the holidays coming up it can be difficult to focus on healthy eating. But we have some exciting news that might help you feel connected to others who have made the commitment to eat more veggies all year long!

Adelante Mujeres partners with Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Clinic to provide a program called Produce Rx (PRx). PRx was created to improve health outcomes for low-income, food insecure patients who suffer from or who are at-risk for diet-related diseases.

Medical providers write "produce prescriptions" to refer eligible families. Participants attend monthly nutrition and cooking workshops and receive vouchers to buy fresh fruits and vegetables at the Forest Grove Farmers Market.

For the past five years, we have created structures, strategies, and curriculum that have been effective in helping bring positive health change to participants and their families. In April, we started working with Evolve International Consulting and the Wallace Center at Winrock International to create a Produce Rx Manual.

The document outlines our journey, methods, challenges, and successes of working specifically with the Latinx community. Over the next year, we hope to share this document at conferences as well as on our website. The PDF is free to download and we hope that it will be useful for others starting Veggie Rx type programming in their area.

In its five years of operation, the program had served over 150 individuals and more than $40,000 in fresh produce vouchers was redeemed, also helping boost the local farm economy.