DukeMed Root Causes Fresh Produce Program 2022

*Note: Donations of $20 or more, please fill out THIS form to get a ~fresh~ T-shirt!

Food insecurity (a person’s limited or uncertain access to food) is a crucial predictor of increased risk for debilitating chronic diseases and leads to poorer quality of life, worse health outcomes, and higher mortality rates. Sadly, food insecurity also disproportionately affects people of color. In Durham County, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, about 1 in 4 Latino and 1 in 6 Black residents skipped meals or ate less food because they did not have enough money.

 

The Fresh Produce Program is a Duke Medical student-founded service that partners Duke and Lincoln Health clinicians to support food-insecure families with fresh produce and nutrition education at no cost. We source our food locally and deliver our food boxes and nutrition curriculum right to their doorsteps, lowering the barriers for these families to get healthy food into their diets.

 

Currently, Fresh Produce Program serves 400 families in Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh areas and remains entirely grant and donation funded. We hope to help over 1000 patients by 2024, so our goal this year is to raise at least $20,000 from our community, with 100% of proceeds going towards providing locally sourced fresh food and nutrition education to our community members and scaling our service to support even more families in the triangle area.

With our program, a little goes a long way - Just $20 is enough to keep a family on our supplemental food service for a month! 

From the bottom of our fruit baskets, thank you for your support! If you have any questions about our program, volunteer opportunities, or how we use our funding, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us!