You may have heard of Blue Apron or HelloFresh – simple recipes with pre-measured fresh ingredients delivered right to your door, allowing you to make healthy meals from your own kitchen.
The Springfield-Greene County Health Department has used the concept of meal kits to reduce food insecurity in the Springfield community. In June, the department began piloting a meal-kit project to provide families with healthy meals they can prepare themselves at home.
So often we hear from families who say they can’t afford or don’t have the time to go to the store to purchase all the fresh ingredients to make a healthy meal at home. The purpose of the meal-kit pilot project is to determine if we could take the meal kit concept and make it available to families who can’t afford the $8 to $12 per serving for most meal-kit delivery services.
Each week for four weeks, Health Department employees and Boys & Girls Clubs of Springfield volunteers assemble meal kits for distribution to families attending The Northwest Project’s weekly program at the Drew Lewis Foundation at The Fairbanks. All of the recipes include fresh produce, a protein and other pre-measured ingredients. After the first distribution, it was clear the program was a hit.
We had participants tell us this is the first time they’ve had meat or fresh vegetables in months. Several said cooking healthy meals at home isn’t an option for them because they can’t afford the quality of ingredients in the meal kits or they just don’t have the time to go shopping for ingredients to cook healthy meals at home.
In addition to providing alternatives to families strapped for time and money, the program is also teaching participants about portion control, maintaining a balanced diet and how cooking can be easy and fun.
“My 9-year-old prepared it all by herself, with supervision,” said program participant Chasta O’Malley. “She was so proud of herself and ate it. If I would have fixed it, she wouldn’t touch it. It’s a great way to get kids involved.”
After successful distributions at the Fairbanks, the Health Department expanded the pilot project to include distributions at all Springfield Boys & Girls Clubs units, the Heart of the Westside neighborhood and at National Night Out.
Volunteers from Boys & Girls Clubs helped assemble the kits. A group of middle-schoolers participating in Springfield Public Schools’ Explore! program also got involved. Students in Pershing Middle School’s #BeTheChange summer school class developed a recipe for the program, helped shop for ingredients, assembled the kits and volunteered at distributions.
Recipes included a turkey sausage and bell peppers skillet, easy crustless quiche, pork chops and veggies and chili mac with cucumber and tomato salad. Similar recipes would typically cost $8-10 per serving through meal delivery services, but the program was able to use one-time grant funding provided by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to provide the kits to families through the pilot project at no cost. The actual cost to assemble them was around $2-2.50 per serving.
While funding has not been identified to continue the project, the Health Department hopes to the idea takes off with the help of interested partners. Anyone interested in supporting or being part of a future food kits project is invited to contact Cara Erwin at cerwin@springfieldmo.gov