Food & Friends

Today is #NationalInternDay! We are celebrating the passion, dedication, and excitement our interns bring to Food & Friends daily. Their contributions are critical to operations across our Volunteer Services, Kitchen, Nutrition Services, Development, Delivery, and Client Services departments. Thank you for your commitment, leadership, and hard work! #futureleaders #interns

Tony, Food & Friends loved hosting you and the executive team for the company's Spirit to Serve Day in December, and we always love hosting Marriott’s LGBTQ+ | ONE Associate Resource Group (ARG), as well as Marriott employees and retirees! Jill Baldwin is our past board president and Joan Lynch is Chair of our Finance Committee. We are grateful for Marriott's continued support and partnership. #NeighborsHelpingNeighbors #FoodHeals #MedicallyTailoredMeals

Thank you to the enthusiastic team from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, who joined us last week to pack medically tailored meals and groceries for our seriously ill neighbors! Volunteer groups are essential to our mission and are a great way to give back to the community. We depend on their generosity and hard work to help pack, prepare, and deliver meals to our clients' doors. #neighborshelpingneighbors

We are so grateful to the entire team at Marriott International for their generous support of our mission and the LGBTQ+ community!

We are excited to welcome Linda Li, our new volunteer coordinator, to Food & Friends! Linda recently graduated from William & Mary with a bachelor’s in government and a minor in gender studies. She brings two years of administrative and logistics coordination experience, and her coursework and extracurriculars at William & Mary reflected her commitment to community service and bridging social inequalities. Linda graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and speaks fluent Mandarin and conversational Japanese.

If you are a healthcare professional in D.C., Maryland or Virginia, please read to learn how you can help your seriously or chronically ill patients receive free, home-delivered medically tailored meals.   When you live with cancer or another serious illness like poorly controlled diabetes, heart failure, renal disease, HIV/AIDS or other illnesses, simple tasks like making a meal can be overwhelming or even impossible. Tracey Tierney, a social worker and palliative care lead at Virginia Cancer Specialists, P.C., has seen how challenging diagnoses and harsh treatments can compromise their ability to maintain proper nutrition.   For Tierney's patients dealing with extreme fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms "preparing food is the last thing they want to do." But years ago, Tracey discovered an important resource for patients struggling with nutrition: Food & Friends, a D.C.-based nonprofit that home-delivers medically tailored meals to people with serious illnesses.   "I first started making referrals to Food & Friends when I worked in hospice care as a clinical social worker. Food & Friends helps individuals improve their health through medically tailored meals combined with nutrition counseling," explained Tierney.   Food & Friends serves clients with a diverse array of conditions including cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, heart disease, stage 5 renal disease, multiple sclerosis, COPD, ALS, Parkinson's, cystic fibrosis, and those receiving end-of-life care. Clients are offered 11 specialized menu options tailored to their diagnosis, medication, side effects, and personal preferences. And every client may access individualized nutritional counseling with one of Food & Friends' registered dietitians, free of charge.   For many of Tierney's patients, Food & Friends has been a game-changer, "Often, the meals from Food & Friends give them the ability to continue their treatment, because it takes a lot of wherewithal. They need to have the proper nutrition to get through it. When I tell our patients that Food & Friends is available to them, they are often surprised and thrilled to know they have an option."   And for many seriously ill patients who deal with social isolation, Food & Friends can be an important connection to the community. "One of the patients I have been working with recently told me that Food & Friends is a lifeline for him. The volunteers who deliver the meals can help alleviate social isolation, and that is another thing that sets [them] apart," says Tierney.   Currently, Food & Friends works with 315 referral partners across the Washington metropolitan region including MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, The George Washington University Hospital, and several managed care organizations.   Are you a healthcare professional in the Washington metro region whose patients may benefit from Food & Friends? If so, visit https://lnkd.in/e79dg22p or contact Absa Fall at (202) 269-6820 or afall@foodandfriends.org.

The relationships we form with our neighbors are essential to why our work is so effective. Many of our seriously ill neighbors live alone and don't have regular visitors. That's why on our clients' birthdays, we take special care to deliver a beautifully decorated birthday cake 🎂 alongside their regular food delivery. Last year, 1,515 neighbors received a cake from Food & Friends on their special day with birthday wishes from our caring volunteers.

Did you know that 1,158 Food & Friends clients participated in nutrition assessments and counseling sessions in 2023? Every neighbor we serve has access to one-on-one counseling with one of our 5 registered dietitians, free of charge. Our Nutrition Services team helps clients discuss or change meal plans, learn about food safety, manage food-related side effects of medication or treatment, and counsel clients on health goals such as weight gain or loss, blood sugar or blood pressure management, and constipation management.

Community Dietitian Matthew Walker, MS, RDN is back with a new episode of Nutrition in the Kitchen! Join Matt as he prepares two delicious grain bowls using ingredients our clients receive in their medically tailored grocery deliveries. 🌾 Grains are excellent sources of carbohydrates and fiber, and their versatility in the kitchen makes them the perfect staple for a fun, easy-to-prepare dish like a grain bowl.

🌡️ Temperatures are rapidly rising across the DMV, and we urgently need your help raising $10,000 for our Summer Food Fund. During brutal heat waves like this, neighbors count on Food & Friends to provide home-delivered, medically tailored meals and groceries, without interruption. Thankfully, our drivers are on the road six days a week–in 100-degree heat, summer storms, and oppressive humidity–delivering essential nutrition straight to our neighbors’ front doors. By making a gift to our Summer Food Fund today, you will ensure neighbors receive the critical nutrition they need during this heat wave. ☀️ Support the Summer Food Fund now at https://lnkd.in/eTWB2hi4