local food. So we’ve brought government and state funding to the area, that then goes to our local people to enable them to buy the local food so that not only helps that socioeconomic group become healthier, it also increases the farmers income. And then we’ve seen a demand for our educational programs so we started off helping one school and now were helping seven schools and we consult with many more beyond that.
Where would you like to see Sustainable CAPE in the future?
I see Cape Cod because of its geographic isolation, as an incubator for all these ideas. And because many of the towns are out in a line, you can get kind of a move-along effect for information regarding education and our initiatives. So, I would love to see the Cape become known as an innovator for food access programs and food education and then have other areas pick it up and make it their own in their own geographic area.
You have also started up VeggieRx. What is this program and how does it work?
The VeggieRx program fits under the umbrella of nutrition incentives. We are working with teams of doctors who can prescribe fruits and vegetables to their state insurance patients who are suffering from the chronic disease of diabetes, prediabetes or are overweight. So they take that pool of patients and for ten weeks, and tell them to go to their local farmers market or participating farm and hand in the veggie prescription to get $30 worth of free fruits and vegetables per week.
Just during the pilate of this project, which was not very many people, we saw indicators of change.
Do you believe the participants of VeggieRx are gaining the benefits that you had hoped?
Yes I do. The doctors have done very in depth biometrics so instead of just measuring height, weight and blood pressure, they’ve also done blood work and measurements of their patients. And in the pilate, which was not very many people, we saw indicators of change.