For her Kosciusko Youth Leadership Academy project, Warsaw Community High School junior Ashlyn Vitoux is partnering with Combined Community Services to establish a “Client Choice/Healthy Choice” food pantry. The program will allow residents getting assistance from CCS to pick their own food and be able to choose healthy items. As a member of KYLA, Vitoux said every student has to do one project. As a long-time volunteer with CCS, she decided to complete her requirement with them as the organization is close to her heart. “I got the idea that, just because someone has a lower salary, that should not stop them from being able to choose their own food,” Vitoux said Monday afternoon in an interview at CCS. Peggi Lisenbee-Wright, CCS director of client services, said a client choice food pantry has been a dream of hers for five years. She didn’t tell Vitoux about it directly, though she was excited when Vitoux told her what she wanted to do. “For years, I’ve wanted to do this,” Lisenbee-Wright said. “At the other building, we just didn’t have the room to do it. When she called me with this idea, I thought it was great. When we moved (into the new building) in May, we set up the food pantry for client choice, though we didn’t know when we would get the time to do it.” Currently, when a family comes in to CCS for assistance, they fill out a form of what their family likes and won’t eat. Then the men in the food pantry gather it for them. “Through this program, we are transforming the food pantry and allowing adults to go in the food pantry, shop around and pick their own foods based on their family size,” Vitoux said. Walgreens donated two small grocery carts for the project. Another aspect of the project, Vitoux said, is healthy choices. “The grants we are writing are to allow clients the ability to choose healthy foods,” she said. In 2011, the K21 Foundation gave CCS a grant for the purchase of healthy foods, Lisenbee-Wright said. According to an unofficial survey, people liked the healthy selections and said they would prefer them if they were available. “There’s no reason not to have healthy foods,” Lisenbee-Wright said. “There’s a mindset if you’re in poverty, you get what you get.” “That shouldn’t be,” Vitoux said. “Her idea really is changing the face of the food bank,” Lisenbee-Wright said. The food pantry also will have a focus on gluten-free and diabetic foods. If a client can’t eat any of the food available because of diabetes, Lisenbee-Wright said there was no reason for them to come in. The program is just getting started, and they hope to get it running by the end of February or early March. To get ideas for the pantry, Vitoux visited the food bank in South Bend. Their food pantry is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In December, Vitoux helped paint the food pantry to get it ready. It now says “Your Choice, Healthy Choice” on either side of the walls, in English and Spanish. She has used donated funds to frame and hang up nutrition/healthy food choice posters; printing supplies to print free professionally designed healthy food choice brochures found on the USDA website; and office supplies and postage to print and mail out a fundraising letter. CCS staff is rearranging the food and shelves to be more family accessible. The new food pantry will need at least two to three volunteers every day to help people get their own food and count points. Clients receive points based on the number of people in their household, and the items in the food pantry are each assigned a point value. Vitoux will be sending out approximately 300 letters to individuals, businesses and others to help drum up support for the food pantry changes, as well as get financial and volunteer help. In part, her letter states, “I am asking you to help me with the healthy choice part of the program. Many of the current CCS clients have health concerns such as diabetes, high blood pressure/hypertension, poor nutrition or allergic to gluten. Many of the foods that are donated or that are found at the food bank in South Bend lack healthy levels of nutrtional value or are high in sugar and salt. Let’s face it, those types of food items are cheaper to provide.” The letter also states that CCS is working with grocery stores to provide more nutritous products to CCS when possible. She also has worked with a dietician at the Wellness Center to create a healthy food choice grocery list to be used by the CCS food pantry staff when purchasing stock items for specific health concerns.
