Healthy bodies require healthy food.
That’s why
Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA) has partnered with local health care providers to get meals and dietary information to people who struggle to eat nourishing meals.
Partnerships with Regional One Health, UnitedHealthcare, and a local federally qualified health center enable MIFA to increase the reach of its longstanding Meals-on-Wheels program. The collaborations tap MIFA’s expertise while freeing its partners to pursue their own strengths in caring for underprivileged people.
Food is medicine, and the more MIFA can partner with health care providers, the fewer people may need health care in the first place, says Tonya Bradley-Parker, vice president of Meals on Wheels for MIFA.
The organization views its health care collaborations as a natural way to use its many years of experience delivering food to fill a gap for other organizations, Bradley-Parker says.
“It’s something we do well,” she says. “We know delivery. We know food. We’ve got the fleet. We have the tracking system. They’re looking for who can do it, and I feel like we do it very well. Why not us?”
![]()
Courtesy MIFATonya Bradley-Parker, Vice President of Meals on Wheels
Delivering health
When officials at
Regional One Health realized many of their patients didn’t have enough to eat, they connected with a local food bank and started an in-house food distribution program.
The health care system provides care to many economically disadvantaged people, many of them uninsured and most of them experiencing food insecurity. With no primary care physician, many people come to the emergency department for basic medical treatment like prescription refills. Some patients visit the ER dozens of times in a year, impacting the overall cost of care for everyone, says Megan Williams, supervisor of complex care at Regional One.
Regional One decided it needed to not only treat illnesses but also explore the reasons some patients returned for care over and over, then connect them to resources to address those root causes.
Doctors treating diabetes, blood pressure, heart disease, or other illnesses often urge their patients to eat healthy, sometimes restricted diets. But, with swaths of Memphis offering no walkable grocery store and no public transportation, people eat whatever they can access at the local convenience store, often triggering or exacerbating health problems, Williams says.
That can mean numerous return visits to the doctor, in addition to the many people who visit the emergency department “just because they’re hungry,” Williams says.
Regional One quickly realized its self-run food distribution program was too labor-intensive to continue long-term. Someone had to already be doing the same thing, and doing it better, Williams thought.
About four years ago, the organization partnered with MIFA to provide food to patients. The resulting collaboration has had such a striking impact, it was featured on BBC as one of only a handful of similar programs in the world.
Regional One patients who qualify receive fresh, frozen, or hot meals each week, delivered by MIFA upon a “prescription” from Regional One. Along with the meals, MIFA drivers provide positive and caring connections and can keep an eye out for red flags to report to a case manager.
MIFA also supplies shelf-stable meals that the hospital can send with patients experiencing homelessness, for whom home delivery is not an option.
Partnering with MIFA allowed health care workers to track the nutritional access of its most vulnerable patients even after they left the doctor’s office. Had the hospital simply referred patients to another food source, they would never know if the patients followed up and got what they needed, says Ashley Eleby, case manager with Regional One.
Four years in, the partnership runs like a well-oiled machine, to the benefit of everyone, Williams says. MIFA’s Meals-on-Wheels program has long focused on Memphis-area seniors; the additional meals on MIFA’s inventory mean a lower per-meal cost, which lets them serve more people while boosting the health of a wider range of recipients.
And Regional One’s partnerships with MIFA and other providers ― who assist needy patients with transportation, clothing, housing, employment, medication, and other needs ― have reduced emergency department visits by more than 40% and reduced hospital stay lengths by more than 60%.
October marked a new aspect of MIFA’s partnership with Regional One. The women’s services division now connects new and expecting mothers who lack food access with MIFA’s meal program.
What makes the partnership so successful? Flexibility, creativity, leadership buy-in, and top-notch communication, Eleby says.
Both partners willingly devote the needed time to strategize and problem-solve to keep the wheels moving smoothly. Both have a heart for taking care of human beings, not just the bottom line. And both are willing to get creative, she says.
A good partnership invests the strength of each partner “to be able to do something a little bit different,” Williams says. “It’s about thinking outside the box.”
![]()
Courtesy MIFAVernua Hanrahan, Resident Engagement Coordinator Memphis Housing Authority
Teaching for better health
Another MIFA health care partnership puts not meals but a health professional on wheels, providing nutrition instruction to residents at public housing high rises in Memphis. MIFA partners with UnitedHealthcare to teach residents how to use food to protect their health ― and it’s making a difference, says Vernua Hanrahan, resident engagement coordinator of the
Memphis Housing Authority.
The MIFA partnership was sparked after Housing Authority officials realized residents were experiencing a lot of amputations related to diabetes.
A MIFA registered dietician leads a short-term, weekly class for Housing Authority residents as part of the
UnitedHealthcare Memphis Catalyst Program. Residents learn how to assess what’s in their cupboards, determine what food is good for them, and tweak their diets to promote better health, especially in the face of diabetes or other health issues.
The Works Mobile Grocer also partners in the program, allowing participants to buy groceries from a food truck right after they learn the best way to put that food to use.
MIFA workers also equip residents with basic tools to prepare food. When working with their first cohort, the session leader asked who in the room owned measuring cups. Only one person raised their hand.
MIFA provides what it can, which includes water bottles to encourage hydration and, for the duration of the class, a tablet that helps participants track their blood pressure, weight, and other health metrics.
MIFA’s onsite classes get residents out of their apartments and connect them to their neighbors while providing vital information they might not be able to reach at an offsite training. In the first cohort, participants lost weight and lowered their A1C. The classes may have been a lifesaver for one participant, who started going into a diabetic coma but recognized the symptoms and called for help, Hanrahan says.
When the three-year grant backing the partnership ends, Hanrahan hopes the collaboration with MIFA continues. That stands a better chance if the community realizes the power of the partnership and gets behind it, Hanrahan says.
In another MIFA health care partnership, a local federally qualified health center provides nutritional counseling and an in-person grocery store education session, while MIFA provides up to 12 weeks of frozen meals for each member of a participant’s household.
The program has provided more than 25,000 meals to more than 100 people in more than 30 households.
Health care partnerships eliminate unnecessary duplication of efforts and let partners do what they do best, says Ellen Whitten, MIFA director of impact and communications.
“Collaboration has been extremely important to strengthening what we do and extending our impact,” Whitten says. “We know that we work better when we work together.”
Author bio:
Julie J. Riddle is a freelance journalist based in Jackson, MI and the editor of Jackson Magazine. She writes about quirkiness, connections, and the transformative power of informed compassion in her
blog here. Learn more at
juliejriddle.com.