Gratitude: The holidays are over and we experienced the glowing wake of extraordinary expressions of generosity as the year came to a close. We are grateful for your year-end contributions in support of the mission of Mama’s Kitchen. These contributions provide nutrition education, medically appropriate home-delivered meals, and pantry services.
Medi-Cal Pilot Project: 2018 will see the implementation of an exciting pilot project funded by the State of California that will serve people living with congestive heart failure (CHF). Specifically, this nutritional intervention will focus on Medi-Cal patients with a diagnosis of CHF who have been in the Medi-Cal program for at least one year. The intervention will include a minimum of 12 weeks of home-delivered meals that are medically tailored. It will also include intensive nutrition counseling and education by our registered dietician. This project is being implemented in collaboration with five other nutrition service providers in California. It has been a joy to work with the leadership of Project Open Hand (San Francisco), Ceres Community Project (Sonoma County), Project Angel Food (Los Angeles), The Food Trust (Marin County), and Food for Thought (Sonoma County). This project’s goal is to demonstrate that the provision of medically tailored meals will improve health and wellbeing of participants and, in doing so, reduce the number hospital readmissions, emergency room visits, and the length of hospital stays. Over the course of the pilot project – three years – we anticipate serving an estimated 150 people living with the challenges of congestive heart failure.
Dr. Mathilde Krim, a crusader against AIDS from the early days of the epidemic, passed away on January 15, 2018. Not only did she fight AIDS, Dr. Krim also fought for the civil rights of people living with AIDS. According to an article in the New York Times, “she became America’s foremost warrior in the battle against superstitions, fears and prejudices that have stigmatized many people with AIDS, subjecting them to rejection and discrimination.” She was a voice of knowledge and compassion at a very critical time in the AIDS epidemic. Dr. Krim was 91.