Everyone's Harvest's mission is to provide access to healthy, affordable fruits and vegetables through certified farmers markets and community food programs.
Everyone's Harvest (EH) implements multiple Food is Medicine programs in Monterey County, providing local produce to families with low incomes experiencing nutrition insecurity. Fresh Rx partners with physicians to provide weekly produce prescriptions at farmers markets in Salinas, Marina, Pacific Grove, Seaside, and Castroville–taking Food is Medicine from theory to practice. The program allows doctors to prescribe fruits and vegetables to patients with diet-related diseases, thereby providing local produce to nutrition-insecure families, improving health outcomes, potentially reducing long-term healthcare costs, and supporting sales by local farmers. The EH model of integrating food and nutrition interventions into preventive healthcare contributed to Medi-Cal health insurance supporting Fresh Rx as medically supportive food. Fresh Rx has expanded from a seasonal to a year-round program, and EH’s complementary programs–Market Match and Edible Education–have increased match amounts for CalFresh families and delivered new nutrition education programming, respectively, improving health with locally grown produce.
[Fresh Rx] has helped me because it assisted me in eating less junk food, and now I eat more fruits and vegetables. It helped with my blood sugar; my levels are better, and my doctor has told me that my blood sugar is more under control. Thank you to all the program participants. Thank you very much. (translated from Spanish)
- Fernando Jimenez Carillo, Salinas, CA
