Veggies for Vets program at VA White River Junction, helping to provide fresh produce to Veterans

Every Tuesday and Thursday from July to October, Veterans would pick up their share from the pop-up farm stand created by a small group of VA employees along with the community partner Willing Hands, a hunger-relief nonprofit based in Norwich, Vermont. Each week in the White River Junction VA parking lot 150 shares of fresh produce were distributed.

Part of a larger movement known as Food as Medicine, this program works to provide fresh fruits and vegetables grown on farms all over the Upper Valley to veterans who have diet-related diseases and/or food insecurity.  Diet-related diseases include high blood pressure, prediabetes/diabetes mellitus, and high cholesterol. Each box comes with 5-10 different types of produce and a seasonal recipe showing how to prepare a delicious meal using them.

“So how much for a box?” is a question the Veggies for Vets team was asked almost every week, and the answer is always the same: nothing. Thanks to funding by VA’s Office of Rural Health, for the second year in a row, Willing Hands has brought 150 boxes of produce to White River Junction VA and free of charge are given to our Veterans. 

Food insecurity is a serious issue affecting our Veterans, putting them at risk for poorer physical and mental health. Veterans are less likely to enroll in hunger relief programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) than their non-veteran counterparts (Dubowitz, 2023). Per a study published in 2021, Veterans with depression, PTSD, and MST are at a higher risk for food insecurity, and Veterans of color and women Veterans are at a particularly high risk (Cohen et al). 

Veterans living in rural areas face additional barriers to eating nutritious diets, such as having a more limited selection of fresh produce, a lack of public transportation, and often finding higher prices at the grocery store. Those who struggle to pay bills, yet do not meet income eligibility requirements for hunger relief programs such as SNAP, are especially vulnerable. 

“It provides vegetables that I often feel are out of reach financially when I have to pay for other non-negotiables bills like housing costs: mortgage, insurance, taxes and vehicle costs: gas, maintenance.” A Veteran from Brownsville, VT shared.

Even those who may be meeting their daily estimated calorie needs might be at risk for what is known as nutrition insecurity: a lack of consistent and equitable access to healthy, safe, and affordable foods that promote optimal health and well-being (USDA). In addition to the impacts on diet-related diseases and food insecurity, Veggies for Vets helps to address nutritional insecurity by providing a consistent source of high-quality foods week after week.

The boxes are brimming with enough produce to supply a household, and many Veterans share their veggies with others around them, leading to widening ripples of good health. Most weeks, a Veteran or two will call to say they cannot pick up their share and ask for it to be given away to someone else. Any boxes that are not picked up during distribution are put into a refrigerator near the Pharmacy with shelves labeled reserved and available, and those on the "available" shelf are free for any Veteran to take home.

As part of the program, Veterans were asked to fill out an optional questionnaire through Whole Health to get a sense of how the program impacts their health and wellbeing. When asked how the Veggies for Vets program aligns with what matters to oneself, one Veteran from White River Junction, VT wrote: 

“My wife, children and grandchildren [matter to me]. Before this program I didn’t care if I lived or died. But this program changed that. I have something to look forward to each week. Thank you so much.”

Another Veteran from White River Junction wrote: 

“With advancing age, we start to appreciate our health more and appreciate having better health. I know the impact of veggie boxes. Over the past year I have lost about 20 pounds. My blood pressure and fasting [glucose] have decreased. I credit most of this because of eating more vegetables. Thank you very much.”

The Veggies for Vets program has been made possible by the hard work, dedication and collaboration of White River Junction VA’s interdisciplinary team that included employees from the Research Department, Whole Health, Social Work, Primary Care, Nutrition and Food Services, as well as Facilities Management Service. Researchers Prabhavathi Loganathan and Laurie Waterman dedicated time each week to setting up the tent, registering veterans for the program, compiling data and fielding the Veggies for Vets hotline to help coordinate pickups for Veterans unable to make it to the two weekly distribution times

If you know a Veteran experiencing food or nutrition insecurity, there are resources available. For more information on food security initiatives at VHA, visit VA’s Food Security Office (FSO) website (https://www.nutrition.va.gov/food_insecurity.asp). FSO was established in 2022 to collect data on food insecurity and provide resources to providers and veterans nationally. 

References:

Cohen, A. J., Dosa, D. M., Rudolph, J. L., Halladay, C. W., Heisler, M., & Thomas, K. S. (2022). Risk factors for Veteran food insecurity: findings from a National US Department of Veterans Affairs Food Insecurity Screener. Public health nutrition, 25(4), 819–828. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980021004584

Dubowitz, Tamara, Andrea S. Richardson, Teague Ruder, and Catria Gadwah-Meaden, Food Insecurity Among Veterans: Examining the Discrepancy Between Veteran Food Insecurity and Use of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1363-2.html.

USDA Actions On Nutrition Security. USDA Food and Nutrition Service. (n.d.). https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-actions-nutriti…