Amerigroup Tennessee bridges gap between food and those who need it most

JACKSON, Tenn.– One in five children and one in six adults are now food insecure, meaning they don’t have access to a stable system of food. To help, Amerigroup Tennessee has donated $70,000 worth of refrigerators to 20 food pantries and community organizations across Tennessee.

“This isn’t an issue of not enough food, it’s an issue of getting the food to where its needed,” President of Amerigroup Tennessee Robert Garnett says.

Amerigroup Tennessee found that refrigeration was the key hurdle among community based organizations across the state.

“What we heard loud and clear is we have food, but the real bottleneck of the issue is that we don’t have a way to keep the fruits, vegetables and other non-shelf stable food, to keep it fresh longer,” Garnett says.

Garnett says the remedy was to help fund purchases of additional refrigeration equipment so that they could hold onto more food longer and get it out to those in need.

“It is going to increase the number of people that they are going to be able to serve and support because it will allow them to maintain food longer, store larger amounts of food,” Garnett says.

Garnett says the focus on food insecurity has been greater, specifically this year, due to the additional challenges people have been faced with.

“We have been really focused on food insecurity as apart of our larger focus on social determinants of health because you know for some time that’s a big driver in terms of peoples health. It is hard to think about going to the doctor if you don’t have enough to eat,” Garnett says.

Garnett says it is really important to bring awareness on this issue and find creative solutions to help solve it.

“We are committed to food insecurity beyond this year. This is not a short term commitment for us. We find this essential within the context of what we do,” Garnett says.

Amerigroup Tennessee is working on a variety of creative solutions to bridge the gap.