Boston Medical Center uses a food pantry and healthy eating demonstration project to treat nutrition insecurity in its community, according to an article on the Hospitals and Health Networks website.
Deborah Frank, M.D., director of the Grow Clinic for seriously underweight children at Boston Medical Center, was approached by one of the clinic’s nutritionists about starting a food pantry back in the 1990s.
Their initial work in helping to feed the community led to the establishment in 2001 of what was one of the first hospital-based food pantries in the U.S.
Demand has grown ever since and the hospital recently rolled out a significantly larger version.
They now have expanded storage space to accept more donations and offer more cooking classes. Today, they distribute about 12,000 pounds of food a week.