SMART Receives NY Health Foundation Grant
SMART is proud to announce that we are a recipient of the NY Health Foundation’s Healthy Food, Healthy Lives: Supporting a More Equitable Food System grant. With support from this grant, we have launched SMART Food for Life, a pilot project that will directly address the health of SMART women clients by linking those with Type II Diabetes (or who are pre-diabetic) to: a) nutritional counseling, b) the development of a medically tailored, culturally appropriate food plan, and c) the provision of prescribed food. By piloting this project in-house with a cohort of 12 current SMART clients, we aim to develop a replicable model to share with other non-profits and health clinics.
Cohort members will meet regularly with our partnered registered dietician Arielle Kestenbaum, MS, RD, CDN/Executive Director at Fare Meals, to develop a tailored food plan based on their unique medical needs. In addition to these one-on-one nutrition counseling sessions, cohort members will continue to participate in SMART's weekly Culinary Workshops led by Arielle and Sam Clare, as well as attending additional sessions tailored to Type II Diabetics, including focus groups and special workshops.
Through a partnership with Mt. Sinai’s Medicine Residency Program, we will link each cohort participant to our partnered physician, Dr. Megha Srivastava, who, in consultation with Arielle, will provide an individualized food prescription.
SMART will utilize our current partnerships with food vendors such as Shop Healthy supermarkets, GrowNYC, and local farmers’ markets to help fill each member of the cohort's food prescription.
Download a healthy recipe tailored especially for Type II Diabetics.
