A new movement is bringing affordable, healthy, grab-and-go meals directly into Detroit neighborhoods.
It’s called the Heart Healthy Initiative, and it includes placing bright orange refrigerators in community sites across seven zip codes to make nutritious food more accessible.
The plan involves marketing healthy, affordable meals in places like convenience stores, community centers, and liquor stores. There’s also a food truck that goes around Detroit with grab-and-go meals.
“We just want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to have a healthy grab-and-go meal,” said Loretta Bush, the CEO of Authority Health Detroit.
“We’re all going to grab and go periodically, and so we want to have choices. Instead of going through that drive-thru line and getting something high in calories, low in nutritional value, we want something that is high in nutrition and also affordable,” she said.
The initiative also includes an educational component where community health workers act as food ambassadors to let people know the connection between the food that they are eating and the prevention of chronic disease, Bush explained.
The Heart Healthy Initiative has a new promotion underway called the One Grand Challenge. Participants can create a 30-second creative video showing their selection from a Healthy and Resilient Communities vending machine. The first place winner will receive a $1,000 gift card.
If you’d like more information about challenge and the Heart Healthy Initiative, watch the video above or click here.