Local nonprofit Food for Health is on a mission to provide healthy meals to the community.
The organization is the state’s first accredited medically tailored meal provider, preparing and delivering meals designed for people living with chronic health conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high-risk pregnancies and early-onset dementia.
The nonprofit also helps participants manage or even reverse diet-related illnesses through nutrition and wraparound wellness services.
Most participants are referred by hospitals, health care providers, insurance companies or community organizations, according to Kathy Koshgarian, president and CEO of Food for Health.
Programs are funded through grants, sponsorships and donations, allowing eligible residents to receive meals at no cost.
Grocery closures highlight growing need
Increased access to healthy food is crucial in Milwaukee, which is grappling with the closure of at least eight grocery stores over the past year. The closures have left residents in neighborhoods that already had fewer options for fresh food now having to travel farther to get it.
“For some people, it can mean up to a 45-minute bus ride to the nearest grocery store and three different bus trips,” Koshgarian said. “Can you imagine having to carry your groceries in this heat through three bus rides and 45 minutes?”
Koshgarian said the grocery store closures have intensified an already widespread problem.
About 35% of Milwaukee residents live in food deserts, she said, and many of those residents also face diet-related health conditions.
“We can’t keep grocery stores open, and we’re not going to be able to open grocery stores,” she said. “But we can provide fresh, healthy access to food.”
The Nutrition in the Neighborhood initiative was launched earlier this year as an immediate response. The initiative includes events where meals are distributed and outside nonprofits provide additional resources, which helps residents connect with other services while picking up food.
The organization hosted its second Nutrition in the Neighborhood event of the summer in Halyard Park on July 14.
Staffers at that event grilled food for neighbors while distributing 1,000 healthy take-home meals outside the organization’s headquarters, 2007 N. Martin Luther King Drive.
Community organizations offered health and social service resources there as well.
Koshgarian said the effort demonstrates how public, private and philanthropic partners can work together to address community needs.
Built to be part of the neighborhood
Food for Health moved into Halyard Park in 2022 after constructing a 15,000-square-foot food production facility on the site of a former YWCA building and renovating the neighboring Pine Brothers building.
Koshgarian said the organization intentionally designed the campus to blend into the surrounding residential neighborhood after holding listening sessions with residents.
“We wanted to arrive into the neighborhood as a neighbor,” she said.
Lived experience
Sharaka Berry, Food for Health’s manager of engagement and advancement, said the organization’s mission resonates with him because he’s lived in neighborhoods with limited access to healthy food.
“I know what it’s like,” Berry said. “A lot of these issues don’t affect me personally anymore, but I remember what it was like to have that lived experience.”
Berry, who also works as a personal trainer and diabetes educator, said healthy food can improve more than physical health.
“It gives me more energy,” he said. “That’s one of the things about healthy food that we don’t talk about enough, how it impacts our ability to work and better our lives.”
Participant says program changed her health
Tracy Olkwitz said she joined the medically tailored meal program at Food for Health after being contacted by her insurance company.
The program provides five prepared meals each week, along with nutrition coaching and health monitoring tools.
“They’re going to save my life,” Olkwitz recalled thinking after learning about the program.
She said both the quality of the meals and their convenience helped her return to healthier eating habits.
“You’re not going to find anyone in Milwaukee that will offer you this healthy of an alternative,” she said. “Everything else is ultra-processed. This isn’t.”
What’s next
Food for Health is planning to host another Nutrition in the Neighborhood this summer.
The organization also expects to host a community meal and resource fair in August, as it continues its medically tailored meal program.
For more information you can visit Food for Health or follow Food for Health on Facebook.
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