Every other week, Shemere Sims’ daughter, Jazmere Crayton, receives meals tailored to improve her health. 

Sims, who lives in New Brighton and does not have a vehicle, said people in her position face difficulties getting access to fresh food based on both geography as well as storage and shelf life. While there were programs Sims was introduced to, including the Twin Cities Mobile Market, her lack of a car meant meal delivery was the most appropriate solution. 

“We don’t live anywhere near a grocery store,” said Sims. “The only thing we have around us is a gas station that’s not good at all. They don’t have anything. I can find ways to get to grocery stores, that’s not hard. But the thing is that when you do buy fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, they go bad quickly if you don’t just eat them (right away). Even if you do eat them all, they’re gone. And then what else do you have as far as nutritional stuff in your freezer or refrigerator to put together?”

Currently, Crayton receives meals every other week – two meals for each two-week period. 

The program Crayton receives meals from is a partnership between Fair Table – M Fairview Health’s Food is Medicine program – and Open Arms, a Minnesota nonprofit that delivers dietician-tailored meals to people who are chronically and/or critically ill. The partnership between the two organizations began last year, and is focused on delivering meals to clients with pre-diabetes, Type 2 diabetes, and/or those who are pregnant or postpartum.

While Open Arms’ funding has been affected by federal freezes and a state budget deficit, Fair Table food resource navigator Kate Henschel said Fair Table’s partnership with Open Arms, which is based on a grant from the Minnesota Department of Health and Human Services, is not affected by federal executive orders.

The meals packed for Sims by Open Arms include two days of lunches with sandwich-making kits, one salad-based lunch, and four days of frozen meals, along with a week’s worth of frozen dinners. Open Arms’ frozen offerings, however, aren’t the same as frozen meals in the freezer aisle. 

Currently, Fair Table’s food resource navigators – Henschel and her colleague Mang Vang, Fair Table’s first food navigator – work at seven clinics in the Twin Cities area. Henschel assists clients with finding food at M Health Fairview Pediatric Specialty Clinic – Explorer in Minneapolis and M Health Fairview Clinic – Oxboro in Bloomington, while Vang assists with food navigation at five different clinics in St. Paul. 

“We started rolling out the food resource navigators in clinics where they were having the highest number of positive risk screening for food insecurity on their social determinant of health screening,” said Henschel. 

While Fair Table’s food navigators do not operate outside of these clinics in Greater Minnesota, there are other Fair Table programs to improve food access, including shelf-stable food bags and food resource information packets, available in Greater Minnesota clinics.

“These are fresh prepared meals that are frozen and they’re shipped out within a reasonable timeframe,” Henschel explained, noting that these meals are prepared and cooked fresh in a centralized kitchen and then distributed without being highly processed. She added there are also more than a month’s worth of different menus, allowing for variety within a tailored diet, along with desserts.

“It’s an abundance of stuff, which is awesome when you don’t have access to it or when you just don’t have the means to get it,” said Sims of the food provided to her daughter. She also recognizes that meal delivery has tangible benefits for other Minnesotans beyond her own family, especially for those who are older or have weak immune systems. 

“I just wish a lot more people heard about this. I say ‘Open Arms’ and a lot of people have never heard about this and that befuddles me,” Sims said. 

Now, under a year since she started receiving meals, Clayton, who is part of a dance team, is no longer pre-diabetic. Her favorite meal is macaroni and cheese, though she admits to sometimes putting some pepper on for flavor.

Deanna Pistono

Deanna Pistono is MinnPost’s Race & Health Equity fellow. Follow her on Twitter @deannapistono or email her at [email protected].

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