Priority Area: Access to Healthy Food and Beverages

Prescription for Food

The Guilds Center for Community Health is committed to ensuring children and families have access to nutritious food choices that improve their outlook for good health and well-being. A great example of this commitment includes Valley Children’s Prescription for Food program in Merced County. With funding from the Central California Alliance for Health, Valley Children’s primary care providers at its Merced Olivewood Pediatrics practice screen children for food insecurity. If children/families are found to be food insecure, meaning they do not have regular access to affordable healthy foods, our healthcare providers hand the family a "Prescription for Food" voucher, which entitles them to receive a free 30-pound box of nutritious and healthy foods from the Merced County Food Bank on monthly basis for twelve months.

Kids Eat Smart

Valley Children’s and the Guilds Center for Community Health partnered with Vallarta Supermarket in Fresno during the summer of 2019 and with their stores in Tulare, Visalia and Porterville during the summer of 2020 to promote access to healthy foods. Through the program, children who were shopping with their families at any one of the participating Vallarta Supermarket locations were offered free fruit. Given that many children rely on meals provided by schools for much of their food intake, Valley Children’s felt it was important to make healthy food available, especially during the times most children are not in school.