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US: Lynchburg, Virginia - Lynchburg Hospital Offers Unique Experience With Home-Grown Lettuce
Centra in Lynchburg is offering fresh lettuce that’s grown in the building at its salad bar. Centra partnered with a Charlottesville company to grow four different kinds of lettuce, including romaine. Nutrition service officials said they can control the plant’s environment and receive alerts on their phone if something is wrong
Lettuce takes two to four weeks to grow before served to patients, families
LYNCHBURG, Va. – Feedback has been good for one hospital that’s taking dining to another level.
Centra in Lynchburg is offering fresh lettuce that’s grown in the building at its salad bar.
Centra partnered with a Charlottesville company to grow four different kinds of lettuce, including romaine.
Nutrition service officials said they can control the plant’s environment and receive alerts on their phone if something is wrong.
“We have chefs who serve things. We want the food to be nutritious. We want the food to be good tasting. So, things like this are innovative. We are the first ones to have this in the U.S. This does not exist in any other hospital,” Timothy Schoonmaker, executive chef of Centra Nutrition Services, said.
Schoonmaker said it takes about two to four weeks for the lettuce to be ready and served to patients and families.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Magdala Louissaint
Magdala Louissaint is an award-winning journalist who joined WSLS 10 in July 2017 as the Lynchburg bureau reporter.
Magic Johnson Says This Hospital-Run Greenhouse Is Changing Health In N.J.
Basketball legends, greenhouses, and hospitals might not seem to have a lot in common, but Magic Johnson, this particular greenhouse, and Newark Beth Israel Medical Center sure do
September 27, 2019
Amanda Brown| For NJ Advance Media
Basketball legend and entrepreneur Magic Johnson (left) toured the greenhouse at Newark Beth Israel. Community Wellness Coordinator Lorraine Gibbons (right) shows him some of the crops they grow.
By Brianna Kudisch | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Long rows of fresh herbs and vegetables neatly line the enclosed and sunlit space, filling it with an earthy scent and an abundance of green. Tiny plants of basil peek out from their squares, string beans grow on winding vines on the left side of the entrance, and toward the back, a lone bright lemon hangs from its stem.
“Oh yeah, this is great,” Earvin “Magic” Johnson says to the greenhouse’s community wellness coordinator, gently touching the yellow fruit in admiration.
Basketball legends, greenhouses, and hospitals might not seem to have a lot in common, but Magic Johnson, this particular greenhouse, and Newark Beth Israel Medical Center sure do.
Johnson, 60, toured the hospital’s greenhouse—the only hospital to have one in New Jersey—Thursday afternoon, as part of the hospital’s health and wellness initiatives and partnership with Johnson’s own company, SodexoMAGIC. Both organizations are working to increase access to nutritious food and wellness in the city, along with educating people on healthy lifestyles.
Eighteen percent of Newark’s 72,000 children live in extreme poverty, compared to 7% of New Jersey children overall, the hospital said in a release. More than half of the children receiving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in Essex County live in Newark, it also said.
Johnson and Darrell Terry, the hospital’s president and CEO, talked about the limited access those kids have to fresh fruits and vegetables while they’re growing up -- something they’re aiming to change now.
“You had the bodegas, but you didn’t have the access,” Terry said. “So we’re not only trying to educate about it, but provide the access. I was born in this hospital, and grew up not far from here, and you’re right, there was no supermarket, so you go to the bodega. You didn’t have these healthy options, so people chose what was convenient and cheap.”
“And you can see it, you can touch it, you can eat it,” Johnson added, referencing the hospital’s greenhouse and farmer’s market, a weekly program at the hospital that invites urban community farmers to sell their goods. “You know, I’ve been to a lot of hospitals, but I’ve never seen fresh produce right here and they can pick it up right here. That’s been amazing to see.”
Amanda Brown| For NJ Advance Media
Basketball legend and entrepreneur Magic Johnson (center) toured Newark Beth Israel along with President and CEO Darrell K. Terry (left). He took a look at their greenhouse and farmers' market and spoke to the employees. Amanda Brown| For NJ Advance Media
The Beth’s Greenhouse, which started in 2016, utilizes hydroponic growing, which grows plants in a water-based, nutrient-rich solution, instead of soil. About 100 pounds of food— cultivated and harvested at the greenhouse—is sold every week at the Farmer’s Market and donated to local food pantries.
Located in the hospital’s lobby every Thursday, the Farmer’s Market opened in 2011, as one of the hospital's first wellness initiatives. From Granny Smith apples and parsnips to butternut squash and microgreens, there was a variety of fresh produce at the most recent market.
And in October 2017, the hospital started accepting NJ SNAP benefits at both the greenhouse and the farmer’s market, allowing people to affordably purchase fruits and vegetables.
Newark Beth Israel is the first and only hospital-based vendor in New Jersey that allows people to use SNAP for its locally grown produce, it said. Proceeds from sales are reinvested in programming for health and wellness activities in the community, a release said.
But more than providing access to healthier foods and wellness programs, the hospital and Johnson said they want to educate on and encourage lifestyle changes. He stressed that practicing what he’s preaching is a crucial step in impacting the community.
“So I had my protein shake, I eat egg whites,” he said, “So my diet changed years ago, and so, now maybe to say (to someone else), ‘Hey, I’m doing it myself.’”
Last year, the hospital partnered with SodexoMAGIC to provide food services for both employees and patients. The company focuses on diversity and inclusion within the community, Terry said.
Amanda Brown| For NJ Advance Media
Basketball legend and entrepreneur Magic Johnson toured Newark Beth Israel, a RWJBarnabas Facility. He took a look at their greenhouse and farmers' market and spoke to the employees.
This week marked the first time the basketball hall of famer visited the hospital, and people were excited. Throngs of people closely surrounded Johnson as he moved through the hospital, their arms extended with their phones, in hopes of taking a selfie with the star, whose infectious smile was hard to miss.
Johnson graciously obliged, taking photos with as many people as possible, and greeting everyone individually, with a warm handshake and a sincere “How are you?”
In his concluding talk to a packed auditorium at the hospital, filled with enthusiastic doctors, nurses, staff, and community members, Johnson spoke of his childhood and his dreams growing up. The basketball player, who has lived with HIV since 1991, talked about the importance of healthy living and said Terry is doing “great things, out of the box things” at the hospital.
“This is a true community-based hospital, with its leader being born right here, and also having ties to the community,” Johnson said. “So I love it, I love being a part of something. It’s changing mindsets, attitudes, and now, your body.”
Brianna Kudisch may be reached at bkudisch@njadvancemedia.com.
Follow her on Twitter @briannakudisch. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.
VIDEO: How One Boston Hospital Is Feeding Patients Through Its Rooftop Farm
Carrie Golden believes the only reason she’s diabetes free is that she has access to fresh, locally grown food. A few years after the Boston resident was diagnosed with prediabetes, she was referred to Boston Medical Center’s Preventative Food Pantry as someone who was food insecure. The food pantry is a free food resource for low-income patients
Boston Medical Center’s rooftop farm spans 2,658 square feet.
Photography Matthew Morris
Carrie Golden believes the only reason she’s diabetes free is that she has access to fresh, locally grown food.
A few years after the Boston resident was diagnosed with prediabetes, she was referred to Boston Medical Center’s Preventative Food Pantry as someone who was food insecure. The food pantry is a free food resource for low-income patients.
“You become diabetic because when you don’t have good food to eat, you eat whatever you can to survive,” Golden says. “Because of the healthy food I get from the pantry… I’ve learned how to eat.”
Three years ago, the hospital launched a rooftop farm to grow fresh produce for the pantry. The farm has produced 6,000 pounds of food a year, with 3,500 pounds slated for the pantry. The rest of its produce goes to the hospital’s cafeteria, patients, a teaching kitchen and an in-house portable farmers market.
The hospital joined a handful of medical facilities across the country that have started growing food on their roofs. The initiative is the first hospital-based farm in Massachusetts and the largest rooftop farm in Boston. The facility’s 2,658-square-foot garden houses more than 25 crops, organically grown in a milk crate system.
“Food is medicine. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing,” says David Maffeo, the hospital’s senior director of support services. “Most urban environments are food deserts. It’s hard to get locally grown food and I think it’s something that we owe to our patients and our community.”
Lindsay Allen, a farmer who has been managing the rooftop oasis since its inception, says her farm’s produce is being used for preventative care as well as in reactive care. She says 72 percent of the hospital’s patients are considered underserved, and likely don’t have access to healthy, local organic food.
What people put in their bodies has a direct link to their health she says, adding that hospitals have a responsibility to give their patients better food.
“I generally feel that hospital food is pretty terrible and gross, which I always find ironic since that’s where we are sick and at our most vulnerable and we need to be nourished,” she says.
In addition to running the farm, Allen teaches a number of farming workshops to educate patients, employees and their families on how to grow their own food. The hospital’s teaching kitchen employs a number of food technicians and dieticians who offer their expertise to patients on how they can make meals with the local produce they’re given.
This is part of the medical center’s objective to not only give patients good food, but also provide them the tools to lead a healthy life.
Golden, who has used the pantry for the last three years, says the experience has changed the way she looks at food.
“I’ve gone many days with nothing to eat, so I know what that feels like when you get something like the food pantry that gives you what you need to stay healthy,” she says. “I appreciate all the people that put their heart into working in the garden. If only they knew how we really need them.”