Partner spotlight: Bucksport Regional Health Center
As we celebrate Healthy Acadia’s 20th year, we invite you to join us in celebrating our many community partners who work to improve health and health outcomes across our region. August 8-14, 2021, is National Health Center Week, and we are honored to shine the light on our local regional community health centers.
Community health centers are critically important safety net providers in our rural Downeast Maine communities. In addition to providing local access to primary care, our health centers provide a comprehensive set of health services, including chronic disease management, preventive care, behavioral health care, dental health care, diagnostic testing services. They also help to reduce health disparities by enabling and/or providing connection to ancillary resources such as transportation, translation, social services, food access, and more. The community health care teams across our region have risen above the many challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, finding innovative ways to continue to provide these preventative and primary care services to the communities they serve.
Bucksport Regional Health Center
Since 2019, Healthy Acadia and Bucksport Regional Health Center have partnered to provide fresh produce and nutrition education to food-insecure patients and members of the Bucksport community.
In the spring of 2020, Jessica Richards from the BRHC and Healthy Acadia's Maine SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educator, Nicole Gurreri, created two new raised garden beds at BRHC's main campus. These garden beds are planted with a variety of annual and perennial vegetables, fruits, and herbs. The garden beds are promoted to the Bucksport community as free, "pick-your-own" gardens.
Twice a month throughout the summer and fall, fresh produce is distributed (from both the BRHC garden and gleaned produce from Healthy Acadia’s Downeast Gleaning Initiative) at BRHC and also information about upcoming nutrition education classes is also shared. The garden and produce distribution events are advertised on BRHC's Facebook page regularly, with a schedule of dates and fun garden photos.