A box of love: Tackling food insecurity among Sentara Home Care patients

Virginia Whitesel may live alone, but she is surrounded by love. 

Friends and neighbors check in with her daily. And twice a week, the 81-year-old Hampton, Va., resident receives a visit from Joyce Hodges, a home health aide with Sentara Home Care who assists with bathing, grooming, and clothing. 

Whitesel, who struggles with knee pain and macular degeneration, said during a recent visit that she gets sad when Hodges leaves.

“But if I don't leave, I can't come back,” responded Hodges, who spends an hour with Whitesel each visit. 

“That's right,” laughed Whitesel. “I adore this lady for more reasons than one. I mean she is a very close friend.”

In February of this year, Hodges began delivering more than care. She also started bringing boxes of food.

'I look at it as a box of love'

In response to a growing need, Sentara Home Care and the Virginia Peninsula Foodbank (VPF) have joined forces to deliver free food to vulnerable seniors across the Virginia Peninsula, which includes Hampton, Newport News, and Williamsburg.

It’s a simple process. The VPF drops off 50 boxes of food each month to Sentara’s home care offices. A clinician is then able to pick up a box and bring it with them when they visit a patient’s home. The patient doesn’t have to pay for the box.

"I look at it as a box of love,” said Whitesel. “For me it’s not just a freebie box. It means a lot. To not to have to go to the grocery store and try to shop, it’s a big help.”

VPF is currently the only foodbank in Virginia partnering with a health system to deliver food to home care and hospice patients.

“The responses to the food boxes are always overwhelming,” said Hodges. “I’ve literally seen people that don't have anything in their refrigerator. Partnerships like this matter because we have a community that we're here to serve and we can serve in more ways than one.”

Patients who can't drive to the grocery store are often eligible to receive the free box of food. Clinicians also use a questionnaire to determine whether or not a patient is food-insecure.

Whitesel usually has a cup of coffee and a yogurt in the morning, and it isn’t until her neighbor brings her dinner at night that she truly eats a full meal.

“For people that are like myself who are alone and are hurt and live on a very small income, it means everything to get something like this,” said Whitesel.

Virginia Whitesel looks through the box of food she received in July.

The 25-pound box of food is meant to last for a month and includes non-perishable items such as boxed and dehydrated foods, meats, fruits, vegetables, pasta, and plant-based proteins. The food is designed to meet the dietary needs of seniors, particularly those managing diabetes and hypertension.

“I’m a good old southern girl so I like my grits,” said Whitesel, who adds that the box has encouraged her to eat more. “If I get hungry in the daytime, I can go in there and fix me a little something. It has packages of turkey and tuna, things that are simple that you can have right away.”

Whitesel is also impressed with the carton of shelf-stable milk and said, “It’s unreal you can have milk sit on the shelf and not even worry about opening it until you're ready to use it.”

A 2022 report by Feeding America showed there are over 61,000 food-insecure people in the Virginia Peninsula region, which makes up 11% of Virginia’s food-insecure population.

“Our patients may have lower socioeconomic status and multiple generations living in one house, so financially things are a little tricky,” said Mary Hansen, regional administrator for Sentara Enterprises. “Not everybody knows that there are resources available.”

Regular home visits have allowed Joyce Hodges (left) and Virginia Whitesel (right) to build trust with each other and form a close bond.

In the first five months of the partnership, Sentara clinicians have delivered 150 boxes to patients equaling 3,750 pounds of food.

“We’re definitely wanting to continue this partnership,” said Renee Figurelle, chief operating officer of VPF. “Everybody deserves access to healthy food, and this is a new avenue for us to do that.”

Once a patient is discharged and no longer receiving home health services, they can still get food from the VPF. Those who are homebound can request DoorDash deliver the food.

For more information about home care services and resources, visit Sentara Home Care Services, Sentara Health Plans, or Virginia Peninsula Foodbank.