Cooking Matters @ Alliance, Class 1: Doha Medani, Summer Intern

Alliance Medical Ministry patients socialize and enjoy the meal they prepared together.

The summer Cooking Matters class has kicked off at Alliance Medical Ministry!

Cooking Matters is a six week cooking and nutrition course that helps Alliance patients plan, shop, and cook healthy, nutritious, affordable, and delicious meals.  Alliance Medical Ministry is a site for this free, six-week program, coordinated with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. The first class for the Summer session was Wednesday June 14th. Approximately 11 participants and a few family members came together to make colorful vegetable fajitas! 

The volunteer instructor for the Summer course is Lindsey Miller, a graduate of Public Health from Appalachian State University who will be attending graduate school in the Fall. The class will be taught in Spanish as well, thanks to volunteer interpreter! Esther Jimenez joined as the volunteer interpreter at this kick-off session.

The class kicked off with a conversation on the importance of food our lives, the barriers we face to nutrition, and what patients hope to learn throughout the course. This week's lesson plan discussed the food groups, the importance of variety and how to incorporate more fruits and vegetables in meals. The course aims to answer many common misconceptions about nutrition and wellness, including organic versus conventional foods, how to best prepare and store produce and poultry, grocery shopping guidance and more.

After discussions, patients got in groups and made delicious vegetable fajitas and pico de gallo! Inter-Faith Food Shuttle provided 40 pounds of produce for patients. Some of the produce used was provided by the garden right here at Alliance! At the end of every class, participants were provided with a bag of produce to take home and incorporate in their meals the rest of the week! This week's produce bag included mushrooms, yellow squash, tomatoes and jalapeños. 

There's still room!  Alliance patients that are interested in joining the Summer class can contact the Garden and Wellness coordinator, Jesse Crouch, garden@alliancemedicalministry.org.  Participants must commit to all six weeks of class, with no more than 2 absences to graduate. 

Colorful Vegetable Fajitas Recipes

Ingredients

• 8 (8 inch) whole wheat flour tortillas 
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 onion, thinly sliced 
• 1 pound dry beans (black or pinto) can substitute canned beans
• 2 cups brown rice
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and sliced in strips
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced in strips
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic 
• 1 yellow squash, halved and sliced into strips 
• any other of your favorite vegetables, diced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Rinse and soak dry beans overnight. Rinse and cook in a crockpot on low for 4-6 hours until beans are soft. (if you don't have a crock pot follow directions for stove top cooking
2. Follow directions for cooking rice on stovetop (rice cookers are great, easy and convenient)
3. in a 10 inch skillet, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onions, red and green bell peppers, and garlic; stir to coat with oil. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 5 minutes. Stir squash into vegetables.  
4. Season vegetables with cumin, chili powder, and black pepper. Add additional seasoning to taste. 
5. Cook for 5 more minutes or until vegetables are soft.
6. Spoon vegetable mixture evenly down the centers of tortilla
7. Add beans, rice, pico de Gallo, salsa , avocado and/or hot sauce.
8. Roll up tortillas, and serve.

Pico De Gallo

Ingredients 

• 3/4 pound tomatoes (about 2 medium), seeded and finely diced (1 1/2 cups) 
• 1/3 cup chopped cilantro 
• 1/4 cup finely chopped white onion 
• 1 small fresh jalapeño or Serrano Chile, finely chopped, including seeds, or more to taste
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice, or more to taste 

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Season to taste with additional chile and lime juice. This salsa keeps in the refrigerator for up to one day.
3. Before you serve it, stir it well and drain any excess liquid that has accumulated in the bowl. 

Alliance Medical Ministry wins Coastal Credit Union Foundation's $65,000 Food Insecurity Award with Passage Home

Alliance Medical Ministry and Passage Home were chosen as winners of Coastal Credit Union Foundation's $65,000 Food Insecurity Award at the Second Annual Power of Sharing Gala. The Power of Sharing Gala is a collaborative funding forum hosted by the CCU Foundation, recognizing the impact of local non-profits. 

The success of Alliance's Community Garden and Wellness Program was highlighted by the Power of Sharing Award.  The clinic distributes over 2,000 pounds of produce annually through its onsite Community Garden, led by our Garden & Wellness Coordinator and managed by over 300 community volunteers. Produce is distributed to patients in the clinic, through our wellness classes, or directly to patients participating in "Healthy Harvest", our CSA-style produce distribution program. 

Alliance shares the award with Passage Home, a southeast Raleigh non-profit with the mission of breaking the cycle of poverty for communities served in Wake County.  Alliance and Passage Home were recognized for their work in the area of food insecurity in southeast Raleigh. Alliance and Passage Home are nutrition hubs of the Raleigh Food Corridor, both serving to provide nutrition, health, and food-related services and education in a single location.

All organizations receiving a Power of Sharing award also received an IBM Impact Grant, allowing organizational leadership to attend IBM’s Web Presence and Social Media Strategy and Planning Session.

A wonderful evening was had by all!  A heartfelt thanks to Coastal Credit Union Foundation for supporting and recognizing Alliance Medical Ministry with this award.

Patient Spotlight: Blanca Perez

Blanca Perez (middle) with Inter-Faith Food Shuttle Katie Murray (L) and Alliance Community Garden & Wellness Coordinator Jesse Crouch (R) at Seed to Supper Graduation.

Blanca Perez has been an Alliance Medical Ministry patient for about three years, joining our practice after a referral from the Wake County health department. "I came to Alliance originally with serious asthma, needing medication to control it." Alliance staff helped connect Blanca with the Patient Assistance Program, and she got the medication she needed to control her asthma. "I use to go the emergency room with my asthma attacks. Now I'm healthy." 

Blanca is a wife, mother, and grandmother, and needs to stay in good health.

"Alliance gave me so many gifts: losing weight, exercise, things that I don't always do. Last year, I did a Cooking Matters class, and learned so many new things. I've never eaten healthy like this, and I needed to learn. All of the food we're making now is healthy and good. It's been hard to make some changes with my family because we grew up eating a different way, but we now have new favorites, like quinoa and hummus."

This spring, Blanca is participating in the Seed to Supper gardening program offered at Alliance in partnership with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle and Master Gardeners, learning how to grow her own vegetables. "This is new for me! I've always wanted to grow my own tomatoes and peppers. We're deciding whether to grow at home or grow at Alliance."

Alliance patients:  Are you interested in learning more about the Wellness Programs offered to all patients?  Read more here.  

Email Jesse Crouch to get involved, garden@alliancemedicalministry.org.

Volunteer Highlight: Rich Woynicz

Rich Woynicz (L) taught the spring Seed to Supper garden education program, hosted onsite at Alliance Medical Ministry.

Rich Woynicz first learned about Alliance Medical Ministry in 2015, when he was just beginning his Master Gardener work. He runs the Kirk Community Garden in Cary, sponsored by the Kirk of Kildaire Presbyterian Church. Since that time, Rich has provided invaluable technical garden support, including helping Garden & Wellness Coordinator Jesse Crouch install the irrigation system last year.

"The Alliance Community Garden is a wonderful example of how organizations can tie together nutritional health, physical health, mental health, and spiritual health. The Community Garden is about more than just gardening - it's about growing people and relationships.  I've applied some of this to the other community garden work I do, and to my work as a Master Gardener volunteer."

In his role as Master Gardener, Rich continues to support our mission by teaching Inter-Faith Food Shuttle's Seed to Supper program at Alliance. "The Seed to Supper program involves Alliance patients and others from the Food Shuttle who want to eat healthier and grow their own food. We teach the basics of home gardening - choosing what to grow when, what to do about plant insects and diseases, and what to do with your harvest. It's a great program to help people get started or get back to growing their own healthy food."

What does Rich find most compelling about Alliance? "I've discovered just how much help AMM has provided to the community. I come across people all over the county who have either been involved or have benefited from AMM's mission. I think partnerships like the one Master Gardeners have with the Food Shuttle and Alliance are the way we all

can reach out to be more effective in own missions. Working together, we get more done and reach out to more people who need our services and expertise."

Thank you, Rich, for your continued support of our mission and Community Garden!

Interested in volunteering?  Learn more.  Apply here.

Wellness Report: Jesse Crouch, Garden & Wellness Coordinator

Seed to Supper, April 2017

The six-week gardening program offered at Alliance Medical Ministry in partnership with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Seed to Supper, has successfully ended!  This program is taught by local Master Gardeners (including volunteer Rich Woynicz), and teaches adult novice gardeners how to grow their own vegetables.  

Three Alliance patients will be graduating this month (including patient Blanca Perez), and at least two patients will be growing vegetables in the Alliance Community Garden this summer! 

“I came to Alliance originally with serious asthma, needing medication to control it. I use to go the emergency room with my asthma attacks. Now I’m healthy.

Alliance gave me so many gifts: losing weight, exercise, things that I don’t always do. Last year, I did a Cooking Matters class, and learned so many new things. I’ve never eaten healthy like this, and I needed to learn. All of the food we’re making now is healthy and good. It’s been hard to make some changes with my family because we grew up eating a different way, but we now have new favorites, like quinoa and hummus.

Now I’m learning how to garden in the Seed to Supper Program. This is new for me! I’ve always wanted to grow my own tomatoes and peppers. We’re deciding whether to grow at home or grow at Alliance.”

— Blanca Perez

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Zumba, April 2017

After a successful 6-week trial run, we're excited to have Zumba as a permanent, weekly offering for our patients!  We're excited to watch this community grow further. 

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Million Step Challenge, April 2017

The Million Step Challenge is well underway, with our physicians and patients competing against each other in teams and individually to "get their steps in"!  

Alliance Team Rankings for Week 6: 

Team Joyner at 10,709 steps per day steps per participant

Team Wasserman at 12,418 steps per day per participant 

Team Burkhead at 7,551 steps per day per participant

Patients and providers are walking together on week nights and weekends to get in the needed average of 9,000 steps per day to achieve one million steps by the end of the challenge!

Garden Report: Jesse Crouch, Garden & Wellness Coordinator

This April, the garden is ALIVE and harvests are picking up! As temps have normalized, our cool weather crops are feeling more at home. Lettuce, radishes, spinach, kale, and swiss chard are growing in abundance for our patients! It's a great joy to give someone food that you've grown, and we're so grateful to have that privilege.

Our new bee hives are off to a great start and we owe a great debt of gratitude to our bee keeper Alice Hinman, founder of the non-profit, Apiopolis.  Check out her work and show your support in honor of Alliance! Bee populations are in decline.  Having bees onsite at Alliance helps ensure that our flowering vegetables get pollinated and are able to produce fruit successfully, such as okra, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, peas, and beans.   

Over April and May, we'll begin planting and work with our summer crops. We'll be transplanting tomatoes, peppers, okra, and squash, and seedling lots of beans! Perhaps the tastiest of all is our strawberry transplants, which are producing well in their first year. It's really fun getting to watch them ripen!

We hope you'll join us on one of our Garden workdays!  We count on the support of hundreds of garden volunteers over the course of the year to plant, weed, water, and harvest vegetables for our patients.  Email to me to learn more: garden@alliancemedicalministry.org.

Jesse Crouch
Garden & Wellness Program Coordinator
Alliance Medical Ministry
101 Donald Ross Dr. Raleigh, NC 27610
garden@alliancemedicalministry.org 
office: (919) 250-3320 x436

2017 Garden Launch

Our Spring garden is now blessed and well underway, thanks to community and patient support at our April 8th Garden Launch!  

Over 30 individuals -- including two Missional Communities from Edenton Street United Methodist Church -- joined our Garden Launch, helping weed, water, plant and harvest.

Volunteers painted new signs for our garden boxes and terra cotta pots for container gardening.

Volunteers helped lay the groundwork for new herb and pea garden, planted beans, built a trellis for the beans to climb, spread mulch, and pulled weeds to add to compost.

A little landscaping was performed to get our campus ready for Spring!

Alliance Director of Pastoral Care & Counseling Toby Bonar blessed the garden.

“Loving God, you have created all that is,
and you deemed it good.
When you created humankind,
you set them in a garden,
where they were to be fruitful, to care for your creation,
and to receive and share your goodness and abundance.
You journeyed with wandering people, and you
delivered them into a fertile land.
You came to be among us and taught us parables about tilling, weeding, preparing good soil, and sowing.
You warned us against building barns for hoarding,
and encouraged us to share with the community.
We stand before you now in this garden,
and thank you for the gift that it is.
We thank you for the many hands
that have toiled out of love for you and neighbor.
Lord, bless this garden to be a blessing,
a place to receive your gifts and share them with others.
We dedicate this garden to you and our neighbors so that,
by your grace, we may till, weed, and prepare our hearts to cultivate, nourish, and harvest your fruitful love. ”

— Toby Bonar, Director of Pastoral Care & Counseling

We look forward to a bountiful harvest of lettuces, radishes, asparagus, and beans!  Thank you to all for your service.