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WARREN -- Second Harvest Food Bank and ONE Health Ohio hosted an event Tuesday at Kidz 1st Pediatrics Clinic, 1821 E. Market St., to introduce their Food is Medicine project.
Ohio's first lady Fran DeWine attended the event, and said she's glad to see Second Harvest and ONE Health Ohio giving to those in need.
"The cost of food is so high right now and lots of people need help, so we just have to find ways to be able to help them," she said.
Kidz 1st Pediatrics is owned by ONE Health Ohio, which also owns various other health care centers.
The project provides patients with food boxes prescribed by ONE Health Ohio and purchased by Second Harvest. The boxes contain boxed milk, cereal, whole grain pasta, beans, canned tuna, canned fruits and vegetables and peanut butter.
Second Harvest also had an ice cream truck at the clinic, delivering free treats.
Food bank Executive Director Michael Iberis said that $50,000 from an anonymous donor was used to purchase the food boxes.
Iberis said the goal of this event not only is to give food to those in need but to promote healthy eating.
He said they are "providing food that is healthier (with) less sugar, less salt and things of that nature."
Iberis said they also will educate people on healthy eating.
"We're collaborating with a number of community partners, educators especially," he said. "They are a cross-section of educators throughout the school system: administrators, classroom teachers and people we know that we can talk to on a regular basis to understand what they see."
ONE Health Ohio is a private, nonprofit organization that covers medical, dental and behavioral health, according to ONE Health Ohio Director of Population Health Operations Melissa Foor.
She said it began the Food is Medicine project three months ago but has been working on it for six months.
She also said workers conduct surveys a week after giving out the food.
"It asks them what they found the most useful, what they didn't like, any suggestions and what impact it had on their health," she said. "We've altered the food boxes to fit more of the needs after getting the surveys back of what they did and did not like, as well as we, as registered nurses, can talk with the patients about how their blood pressure is doing, has their diabetes been more under control, so it's another tool of helping them succeed to their healthiest spot."
DeWine said she is glad to see kids supplied with great nutrition and would love to see programs like this statewide.
"Food is medicine, and I think that's such a great thing and what we feed our kids makes them healthy or not healthy," she said.