Today, ten of thousands of bloggers are raising awareness about poverty on Blog Action Day and I’m happy to be a part of the movement.

As a health counselor, I can’t help but be struck and troubled by how poverty dramatically impacts the health of people across this country. Lack of resources far too regularly impacts whether or not people see the doctor, whether they can afford to buy a prescription or if they even have transportation to receive medical care.

In my local community, I’m passionate about helping people with limited resources be able to access high quality, healthy food at affordable prices. As I know you know, being healthy can be expensive and often people in poverty fall into the McDonald’s-fast food trap. It’s cheap and it fills you up, albeit totally unhealthy. That’s totally understandable.

In New Haven, we have an amazing farmers’ market – City Seed – that has beautiful, locally grown produce. One of the ways City Seed makes healthy food more accessible is by accepting WIC and Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program coupons. When you think about it, new mothers and the elderly are especially in need of the highest quality food.

My friend Marjorie, who’s 76 and on a fixed income, looks forward to receiving her coupons. And I gladly take her to the markets several weekends per month where she’s thrilled to buy fresh produce that can’t even compare to what we find on most grocery store shelves, especially in urban markets where the variety and quality is often lacking. What of my favorite sites on Saturday morning is seeing a multitude of people, of diverse ethnic backgrounds and ages, pulling out their coupons books to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

So this begs the question of what can any of us do to make healthy food more accessible. Here are a few ideas:

• Contribute to your local farmers’ market to help make high quality food more accessible to people with limited means. City Seed has all kinds of interesting fundraisers in addition to accepting donations, and of course, volunteer opportunities.
• Find out if your farmers’ market supports women, children and seniors in more readily accessing healthy food with a coupon program. If not, find out how that could be added.
• If you don’t have a farmers’ market, join with others and find out what could make it possible.

To me, access to fresh food is something we should all be able to take advantage of, regardless of our circumstances. I’d love for you to share your ideas about how we can lessen the impact of poverty and help people be healthier.

Filed under: Fruit, High Quality Food, Locally Grown Food, Optimal Health, Poverty, Vegetables