Empowering Clients to have Control over their Health

Yeoun-Jee Pine, Diabetes Education Coordinator, giving a healthy cooking demonstration.

Department of Indian Work

By Kathy Denman-Wilke

If you walk into the Department of Indian Work Food Shelf on Tuesdays, there will be an aroma of fresh cooking and a burst of activity with our clients. This year, through our Eliminating Health Disparity extension grant, we decided to pilot a Healthy Cooking Demonstration program.

In the past few years, the food shelf has added new crispers and freezers, and increased healthy food options for our clients. Yet, old habits are not easy to change, especially when the client has not seen or tasted the food before and does not know how to prepare it.

So, we decided to utilize our Diabetes Education program staff and choose food from the food shelf to offer these demonstrations. On Tuesdays indicated here, clients can come to the food shelf to experience new ways to prepare foods available from the food shelf and take home a recipe!

We are finding that clients enjoy learning about these options and are choosing healthy food items from the food shelf needed to make these recipes at home. Clients are also invited to attend our Family Education Diabetes Series (FEDS) for more information about health and diabetes prevention.

It is empowering our clients to know they can stay healthy even on a limited budget.

To learn more about the Department of Indian Work, please contact:

Kathy Denman-Wilke
Director, Department of Indian Work
651-789-3854
kdenmanwilke@interfaithaction.org