Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative (MCHB): Grocery Run Program
By: Esther D.
The Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative (MCHB) is a cooperative that empowers cultural minority individuals and their families to realize their full potential to live freely and peacefully in a just society that is inter-culturally secure through cultural brokering practice. MCHB provides support by offering one on one assistance, community development, systems navigation, and advocacy. MCHB utilizes the strengths of the individuals and families they support to maximize their wellbeing and their contributions to an intercultural society.
The Grocery Run Program is an emergency food distribution initiative that provides nutritious and culturally appropriate food hampers to culturally diverse communities experiencing chronic poverty. They are a program under MCHB that started in 2013 where they first began serving 75 families, which has now grown into 550 families. The COVID 19 pandemic has exacerbated this need for food as the challenges, inequities, and barriers marginalized communities face has grown parallel to the pandemic. Between income loss, insecure employment, and the increasing price of housing, the most vulnerable are expected to face food insecurity. The Grocery Run Program combats this by being intentional about what is included in the hampers. For example, there is attention given to including fresh fruits and vegetables. As well as a selection of culturally relevant pantry staples such as, rice, oil, lentils,pasta, teff, and barley flour.
The program is distinctive from other food providing services because they have Relational Agent Health Brokers who are connected to the communities they serve. The role of these agents is to build relationships with the individuals and families so that they go beyond simply addressing the urgent need of food. Rather, this relationship between the community and the agents affords the space for conversations to encourage innovation on how to better support communities socio-economically. This space also allows families to engage in receiving food in a more dignified way, as they are able to express their food and nutritional needs, and therefore the Grocery Run Program can adapt how they assemble the food hampers.
Finally, the Grocery Run Program is also unique in how they operationalize food and culture, for instance, the way they pack eggs is unusual in contrast to other food distribution organizations. The eggs are packed in cut up egg cartons and are placed in plastic bags to visibly ensure their freshness. This genuinely reflects the care and respect MCHB and the Grocery Run Program has for its community members as they guarantee the safety of the food being distributed.
Programs such as the Grocery Run by the Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative, really encourages us to approach food security in a holistic, respectful, and dignified way, by setting an example of how they innovatively run the program.
To find out more about the MCHB and the Grocery Run Program, you can visit the MCHB website: https://mchb.org/grocery-run-program/ and their instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/mchbgroceryrunyeg/
If you would like to support the Grocery Run Program, we highly encourage you to donate to their Go Fund Me: https://www.gofundme.com/f/groceryrun