The Berrien Community Foundation and several partners have announced the launch of the Nutrition Exchange of Southwest Michigan, seeking to fight hunger and improve health across Berrien County.
BCF President Lisa Cripps-Downey tells us the idea started coming together when the BCF noticed it was getting a lot more grant requests from food pantries. As costs rise and incomes shrink or stagnate, a lot of Berrien County residents are facing food insecurity.
“The need was increasing and we created a food for good fund so that we could help out the pantries thinking, was this a blip on the radar? It wasn’t a blip,” Cripps-Downey said.
The Nutrition Exchange falls under the umbrella of the Southwest Michigan Food is Health Collaborative, working with Southwest Michigan farmers to ensure food provided throughout the community is healthy. Linda Tinsley with Meals on Wheels tells us that’s key.
“It’s really important that anything I’m putting out to my clients is very nutrient dense for their health,” Tinsley said. “Over 50% of my clients have chronic disease and over 50% of those people have at least two. And so if we can use nutrition to fight chronic disease, then that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
16%, or one out of six households in Berrien County, have experienced food insecurity. That means they’ve been unable to consistently acquire enough calories to avoid hunger.
A $200,000 grant from the Cook Plant Foundation funded the launch of the Nutrition Exchange of Southwest Michigan this fall, and the partnership just completed its first distribution of food this week.
