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Proven Not Perfect
Proven Not Perfect
Nourishing Communities and Confronting Challenges: Rayna Andrews' Crusade for Public Health
Rayna Andrews, a fervent Public Health Ambassador, shares a slice of her life where adversity and advocacy intertwine. Milwaukee's own Food is Medicine proponent, Rayna, not only offers nourishment but also seeds of health to communities in need. Our conversation dips into a pool of personal accounts, from my own to Rayna’s.
In this episode, we discuss the harrowing realities of youth homelessness as we dive into an experience created by Rayna to reveal shocking truth, of survival for just 72 hours on the streets of Milwaukee. We dissect the barriers homeless youth face in accessing shelter and food, and the glaring inefficiencies of emergency resources.
We wrap up with an in-depth look at how food insecurity, housing, healthcare, and employment are interlaced strands in the tapestry of societal challenges.
A special shoutout for the great mission and work of The Collaboratory of SWFL!
You don’t want to miss this thought provoking conversation.
Drive, Ambition, Doing, Leading, Creating... all good until we forget about our own self-care. This Village of All-Stars pays it forward with transparency about misses and celebration in winning. We cover many topics and keep it 100. We are Proven Not Perfect™️
https://www.provennotperfect.com
Follow me on Instagram at: shontrapowell_provennotperfect
Check out Proven Not Perfect ™️ YouTube Channel as well. Join the community for ideas and events at www.provennotperfect.com.
I'd love to hear what you think!
Hey, proven, not perfect. This is Sean Trapal, your podcast host. I have a great one for us. Today. I'm talking to Reina Andrews, who's Public Health Ambassador and Food is Medicine thought leader, located in the Midwest the mighty Midwest, in the Milwaukee area and with Women's Month 2024 in full swing, I am delighted to share what I believe is a heart led conversation with this social activist for food accessibility, reina Andrews. Reina shares her story and passion in a 2016 TEDx talk entitled Food and Security is a Public Health Concern. Reina reached over 47,000 viewers in this talk. Y'all.
Speaker 1:Reina has launched new ideas for Food is Medicine, adding to the equation. It's not good enough to provide food. It must be thoughtful and healthy. What a novel idea. And she provides us a rubric for us to consider.
Speaker 1:So Reina is a published author of a children's book series that cleverly peaks our curiosity and understanding by evolving the character to become an entrepreneur. This young girl becomes an entrepreneur. I love it. In true proven, not perfect style. You get the girlfriend opening. I'm just warning you. You do.
Speaker 1:It happens is just how we roll, where we reminisce and we catch up. But when I tell you, this hits hard, as Reina's vulnerability is an inspiration. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, this hits hard. Also, there's a shout out to my girls Sarah Owen, past CEO of the Southwest Florida Collaboratory, and current CEO, dawn Bellamiric, current who are both ladies that are advancing a mission to eradicate disparities with a very audacious goal and a very audacious timeline, including poverty. So I think I actually made a commitment to make a connection there, so we all heard it and it's got to happen. You will want to listen to this, you will want to like it, you will want to share it. Enjoy, proven, not perfect. Reina girl, yes, it's been a minute since I've seen you outside of the scrolling. You know the scrolling that we do and we have our friends in the scroll and we're like, oh hey, girl, it's been about six years in person.
Speaker 1:It's been six years in person.
Speaker 2:Because how old is your baby.
Speaker 1:Julian is six and a half, that's what I'm saying. So this is how I know, because you were what. I just remember the closing tour when my family was getting ready to move, make a huge move from Midwest to South Florida, and you had just had baby.
Speaker 1:And part of the closing tour was to hit those, those personal spots that were really important to me. And you know the privilege to be in the space with you and your baby as he was just born, as you were a beautiful mom just so concerned with figuring all the things out. But just like we talked about, it was instinctive, right, like it is insane how instinctive it is. And then we get the privilege of having our mama there too. Yeah, there's something about that that just blows my mind, right. And so I remember being in that place with you. And here we are, six and a half years later, and literally, figuratively right.
Speaker 1:I mean seriously, can we talk about that? Because I even try to think back to who I was when I left the Midwest and who I am now, six and a half years in South Florida. When I left the Midwest I feel like I was a bit broken. Sounds crazy to say, because if you roll the tape back, yeah, when onlooker to an outsider you never would have thought that I would grow was all good, all good, all gravy, nothing but the high points, right. But when I think back, why do I say broken? I think because what resonates for me is just got a bit more bumpy and tough and I believe now, looking back, that that was just the God movement of not fit. Personally feel like I fit there anymore, so that I would be ready to move. So I just remember feeling like the jeans just feel a little tight or, you know, the shirt just doesn't fit quite right. That's what I remember. So maybe it wasn't broken, maybe it was just it was time to move.
Speaker 2:I truly believe that we all have and should get used to as a part of the journey, our hilltop moments and our moments in the valley.
Speaker 2:And we don't often talk about are the transitioning points, which is the up and down.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think the analogy of example of the tightening of the pants is your preparation or that transition period up or down. Yes, I was a bit discussing and the pastor talks about the lilies in the valley and you use the example of the lily and that God has you and the beauty of the lily is that they're perennial so that they can grow year after year after year, but they'll get to their lowest point and sometimes, when you're in the valley, you could feel like you're in your lowest point, but this next season is promising and it would never look like you went through that lowest point and I feel like in 2016, when we last connected, you know I've birthed something beautiful and being a new mom, but I was certainly and at my lowest point, you know postpartum depression, trying to figure things out, trying to am I prepared, lord? What Did I sign up for this? Why, and what was so beautiful? I don't think I saw it as so beautiful, but I realized that there was an agreement that I made with God.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, oh, my God. And so here we are, six and a half years later, and we're both doing that hug, virtually no less, but we're doing that hug and we're both bringing up that. At that place where I thought you had it all going on together, collected, you were feeling like, ooh, and you thought I had it all going on collected. Of course you do. You're promoted to this new place and then this new thing, dah, dah, dah dah. It's not about that. It's about what's going on internally and how God is working on us at that place where we are at that moment, and the purity to be able to acknowledge that, oh my God, wow, I just got all kind of chills. So today, today, here we reunion, because one of the things that I have seen and acknowledged that you're working on is in the space where I remember meeting you. So I'm gonna file it back to.
Speaker 1:It probably was like 2015, 2014,. That feels about the timeframe for me and I was in Milwaukee Forum. Oh my God, I'm taking you back, sis. I'm taking you back Cause this is before. I knew you as my sore, really, but you came as a visitor to the Milwaukee Forum meeting. So, just for my listeners, if you are in sort of a local, global community of leaders, where there is an organization that pulls those leaders together for a place of conversation, of contracts, of debates, of discussion. A lot of time, the leaders of any place and space that you're in so that's Milwaukee Forum, that was the group that I was in Raina came in as a special guest and speaker, and I remember that night distinctly when you shared an experiment Homeless for the holidays. Yeah, it's for the holidays. Talk about that. Tell me, bring it back to me. What was homeless for the holidays, so that we can. So we can start there, cause I want people to know who I connected with initially.
Speaker 2:So that was before my days, even in food banking. That was before my days in county government. That was back in my city, milwaukee days, yes, where I was just on the brink of starting off with the human trafficking task force of Greater Milwaukee, where I was one of the initial founders with Martha Love who was in the past. Oh my God, yes, yes, and I remember so that dates back to like that was like close to 2010.
Speaker 1:Okay, I knew it was way back.
Speaker 2:And then, after that, I ended up joining the forum. But to stick to the story, so there's a statistic that after 72 hours, a teenager or youth begin to engage in survival sex in order to meet their most basic human needs, and the most basic is food and shelter. I just didn't understand that in a community where we have I mean, milwaukee has so many nonprofits covering so many areas, why is it that a youth can't discover these problems? And so I really want to put myself in the shoes of a young person, and I was probably in my early 20s.
Speaker 1:You were early 20s.
Speaker 2:Yes, Wow, I want to put myself in the shoes of someone who didn't know of any of these other resources.
Speaker 2:I knew in the back of my mind 211, but the average person doesn't know about 211, which is our emergency hotline. And so I assembled a crew, because I was also very much into film back then from a local art institute it was the art institute before it left Milwaukee and I had some film students who were willing to take this rugged road with me and just really capture some of the moments and the instances. And so for 72 hours the week leading up to Christmas Eve, I started off at the very top of that hill on North Avenue, going towards the east side, and I didn't have a cell phone, no money in my pocket, just a coat, the clothes that I put on that morning. The crew picked me up from my house and dropped me off at this point, and so I remember the first point was going to McDonald's where I was able to use a cell phone, and I can't believe I said I can't remember what I wore yesterday, and so it just all coming back to me so vividly. I remember.
Speaker 1:This is an appointed story for an appointed time. That's what I'm saying Because I don't remember breakfast yesterday, but I remember that yeah.
Speaker 2:So in this experiment it was for me a way of getting rooted to the lived experience of so many of our young people in our community that you see the symptom being they're strung out on drugs, they're depressed, they're stripping, they're selling drugs, but we don't look at the cause, like the root of it, which is abandonment. And so to this experiment. Look for it, look for cell phone, look for shelter, called around, and in the first, I would say, 12 hours I had nothing to eat and I was running around trying to figure it out. First they sent me to the Salvation Army, but all of their beds were taken. Then they sent me to a warm bed place which was a church that had maybe 25 beds laid out in the basement, almost like a refugee camp. And because I didn't have any money, I couldn't get on the bus and I couldn't walk there fast enough for the time that they would close. So I couldn't get a hot bed. And I remember being so desperate, jumping on a bus to Pathfinders, which was the only organization that I knew of, and I was starving. I remember I was feeling delirious at this point that I was on the bus and I was able to talk to them long enough to get me to stay without paying quite yet, and they ended up getting me to Pathfinders, which they're not supposed to do.
Speaker 2:And Pathfinders, for your viewers, is an organization, one of the very few that work with homeless youth and provide shelter and provide food and support, and so they just so happened to be making meals for Christmas and, for my background, I knew them and I said you know I need some support, but had it not been for that and just thinking about a young 14, 15, 18, even 21-year-old, that's a system that you can't navigate.
Speaker 2:And in this scenario, the auspice is that I lived with my mother who had an abusive boyfriend who was sexually assaulting me, and my mother did not believe me and I was kicked out of the house.
Speaker 2:The reason why I use that is, prior to doing this experiment, I was interviewing a number of homeless youth at Pathfinders and a number of other outreach clinics, and that was a common thread where there was physical, sexual abuse, where the parent did not back the child and the child was removed from the home or abandoned in some way. And so that was my experience and that's what I shared, and that there is a need for us to coordinate the system and there's a need for us, as community, to pressure test the systems at hand, because even at the time and 211 has come a long way, but even at the time I couldn't get connected to my basic human needs, which is why they exist, and the resources that they connected me to either weren't available, were out of order, and if just think I don't have a cell phone because I've just been abandoned, it's like who do I call? And then I could begin to see by date.
Speaker 1:So that night, and this is Christmas season, when everybody else in God's world is follow the line and figuring out the challenge of what gift do I give right and which part do I go to, what do I cancel? Like? That is the beauty of this conversation happening right now the faceless, the faceless aspects of the holiday season.
Speaker 2:I didn't look like I do now. I had on a scully, I had on a black inconspicuous coat, I had like a hoodie, I had some jeans and some boots and that night I actually slept in the loading dock outside of the Art Institute because there was, like it was kind of like a covering. It was freezing cold, but I mean there was cardboard boxes and like I cannot do this. So the next day I woke up to look for additional resources and it's over there by where the Old Green Avenue Mall is, and I went into that Marriott. You know how some of the courtyards have like the fresh fruit, like the oranges and apples. So I went in there again just starving, and I went and I grabbed some apples and oranges and I sat in the lobby and I ate them until someone asked me to leave. That's sad, but you know I'm here waiting for someone, just like you've been waiting for too long. You have to leave. So I ended up going and hanging out at the park right across the street.
Speaker 1:Because you don't want to see it right. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Because you don't want to see it oh exactly.
Speaker 2:But it's somebody's job to see it, to make sure the guests don't see it, that's right, and I remember going to and I slept on the gazebo and I was thinking I've got a camera crew in the car across the street, but as a vulnerable woman sleeping outside in the middle of the night, I just remember my inner spities just going off like this is not safe, wow. And so I completed the 72 hours. Finally I ended up going to. It was so long ago. I remember the next day I ended up finding shelter and a warm meal and I can't believe the name escapes me it was at a church in Jackson Square, downtown, and I got a warm meal.
Speaker 2:But one thing they'll never forget is that it's so prescriptive that you have to check in a certain time, you have to check in for food at a certain time, you have to check in at a certain time to get your bed and if you're late one day you'll be taken off the list and there's a 30-day penalty. Wow. And so just the exhaustive nature on how you're looking to make your basic human needs met. That's so prescriptive and so exact. You don't have transportation, you barely have communication, and you're expected to find a job. I just think the system that we've created is very much slated from the lens of them versus us, and I mean, what we're talking about was like in 2009, 2010, which was really the preparation, unbeknownst to me, for the TEDx that I ended up doing in 2016.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that, because, raina, that TEDx I'm serious, I've known you for years, at this point, and I watched that TEDx and it just hit me so hard One. I think it's brilliant. So Raina did a TEDx in 2016,. Almost to the day, I think it was November 21st 2016. And the TEDx Milwaukee that you did address food, food poverty, food insecurity, but you didn't really stop there. You also talked about the systemic infrastructure that perpetuates it, and then you ended by offering some really actionable ideas and solutions.
Speaker 1:So I just ask everybody if you want some real context, you can press pause on the podcast, you can go to YouTube and you can look up the TEDx with Raina Andrews from November 21st 2016 and watch it. It's about 17 minutes, it's not a whole lot of time, but if you don't do it before, you continue the rest of this, definitely I know you'll wanna do it after, because it is a wonderful, wonderfully designed. It's humorous in the beginning, it opens your heart with laughter, but then it really takes that open heart and starts to plant seeds about the things that you can do proactively to address that faceless world, that it's easier for most of us to just walk around and move around. So, raina, tell us a little bit about the TEDx. I'd love to hear what compelled you to be so vulnerable in telling your story on the stage to the world at that point.
Speaker 2:So the TEDx is called Food and Security as a Public Health Concern, and for those who are going to look forward on YouTube, and what compelled me to actually do the TEDx is that I was really. This is when I went from working in procurement, working in city government, to working in food banking and as a set of fresh eyes, it's like here you have food banking, which collects food as a repository, and then you have them who collect fund money on behalf of a network of food pantries, meal programs and shelters, who actually do direct service, and my background being urban planning and real estate development and spatial and the placement of the built environment and how people respond to that built environment, I think I had a unique lens, but in doing it, what I wanted to share is the them versus us. But in caring for the TEDx, that eight weeks leading up to it, I didn't realize that I had to look to the them.
Speaker 1:That was me, and so Chandra I had Girl, I'm gonna just say I'm gonna double click there as a woman of God. It is amazing. How can you guys do that? Yes, talk about divine. You seriously want me to say that to people outside of me when I didn't what? I didn't even see that myself. Okay, all right, that's what we're doing. Okay, sorry.
Speaker 2:So someone said you know you're a pretty good public speaker. I've thought about, because I've seen a lot of community conversations talking about food banking, raising resources, raising friends. We talked about food funds and friends. I thought this TEDx would be an opportunity for me to raise some food funds and friends, girl. And so I signed up for the class to do the TEDx and they said well, what is your why? I'm here for food funds and friends. And she's like well, you realize, in this TEDx you can't even mention your organization's name. And I said, hmm, and they said you know, let's see your outline. And I was showing up every week and you're like you gotta go deeper, you gotta go deeper. And when I talk to you, when I tell you, shandra, this was God working on me because you know, in this country we have a tendency to shame people For the cancel culture. It was shaming culture and the shame culture was strong, that I had a race.
Speaker 2:I was so embarrassed and humiliated as a child for growing up with very low economic means, yeah that I had blocked out that area and that area of my past and I realized that I had recreated a new identity for myself.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:It's in the tumble beginnings.
Speaker 1:Dana talk about that. How many people in the country that?
Speaker 2:your testimony really lives and since that TEDx I can talk to you about the countries and across the country that have been able to speak to tell this story. But in telling my story with that TEDx, it was a journey and I had, like a committee of public health leaders, spiritual guides, people that were you know your kitchen cabinet, and so it advised me. It's like yo, I'm not comfortable in telling this version of my story, but somehow they convinced me to do it and I've even had some family members or people who really know me and know that side of me that says I don't know if I would have shared that because you know people are gonna start treating you differently and I said, well, that's a part of the problem, that's a part of what I talk about with them versus us. So the TEDx food insecurity is a public health concern was really about me telling my own personal journey, about being experiencing hunger twice in my life. Once was as a child, being raised by a vulnerable, single parent, a single mom who was educated, she had a job, but she had gotten really sick with a rare disease that had her in and out of hospitals and nearly fatal, and so going from making income to making nothing, which is about 50% of the population in the United States is one sick day away from being in the poverty line. I realized that we went from a two bedroom apartment to a one bedroom apartment, from me going outside and riding my bike with my friends to changing my mother's bandages, and having decided and figure out how do we go from making it work. We had magical miracle meals, okay.
Speaker 2:And so in doing this exercise, I told that very vulnerable story.
Speaker 2:But I also told the story of Margo, who is a single mother who's trying to figure out if she's going to buy formula and Pampers and put food on the table right.
Speaker 2:And then I talked about Maria, who is the senior on fixed income, who has to figure out if she's going to buy her medication or put a healthy meal on her table and juggle the cost of rent. And then I talk about Jim or Jose, who has various skills but he can't seem to find a living wage and so he's juggling to make ends meet. And I talk about Richard, who is educated very similar to my mom's story who is married, has a family of three, but lost his job and is trying to figure out okay. Well, how do, I pick up the pieces again, and so I found it to be powerful and therapeutic in uncovering what I had buried, to see how, what were the odds that I ended up feeding people for a living, and as I went from feeding the body now I'm feeding the soul, and I've gone for Uncovering what you were forgetting, yeah, uncovering what I had buried, what you had buried, yeah.
Speaker 2:And in that TEDx I talked about the system where people don't just wake up hungry one day. It is systemic, where you lose your resources, where it's a part of household instability, and my call to action was that for those in the nonprofit space you may be for food, you may be for education, you may be for housing, you may be for employment, but there's a consequence for you to be so monolithic and laser focused just on your thing, and that really what we're talking about, what we all should be working towards, is an anti-poverty strategy which is focused on household stability, because what we're experiencing in hunger is a symptom of an unstable household. So let's say this was like indicators or like tires, spokes on a wheel. Right, in order for that tire to work, you have to have adequate housing, food, health, employment, education, education, as in literacy, like food literacy, academic literacy, fitness literacy, lifestyle literacy, like these are basic needs that are missing from many, many individuals. But if these are spokes on the wheel and let's say, if you don't have stable housing, well, your car can't function because that wheel's not moving. If you don't have food, again, that car's not moving because you've got a flat tire somewhere.
Speaker 2:And the call is to get us to see as practitioners and that, that, one, we have a responsibility to the people to do what's best for their interests and, two, to be unwavering in that pursuit.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes, in nonprofit leadership, the dollars that are available are finite and so you have, like these fiefdoms where, yes, you do food, but now you're going to do workforce development, to tag into these dollars to make your mission work. My call is is can there not be an assembly of funders to change the narrative so that we can now begin to look creatively and work cooperatively in concert? So if I'm in food, you're in housing, you're in employment, you're in education, can we not come together, put our puzzle piece together to create a dynamic strategy and concert that really focuses on stabilizing the households within our region of service? That has not been the conversation and that is the call to action appeal through my TEDx, that it's not them that need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps Because, guess what, they don't have boots in the first place. They don't have boots. It's really a system-wide approach that's failing the people, because you don't just wake up hungry one day.
Speaker 1:So you, what resonates for me, honestly, is collaboration. Right, you're saying how, how can we stop focusing on one aspect of a wheel and acknowledge that it is a wheel? And if we all have some money, some funds, how do we come together with even a portion of them to attack a portion of it, to create the space for solutioning, to maybe then convince us all to do bigger? Girl, I love that. So where does that conversation live? On a bigger basis, have you, have you made space to try to bring that one forward from political impact or from you know what I mean? How, how, how are you seeing that TEDx and that seed planted sprout in community? I can tell you one.
Speaker 1:There's an organization and you know whether they've heard the TEDx or not. There's an organization in Southwest Florida called the Collaboratory. It's formerly the Southwest Florida Community Fund, the Community Foundation. 13 years ago, their leader back then, a woman by the name of Sarah Owens, who I have a great deal of respect for, brought forward a mission to create something called the Collaboratory, rebranding itself, and the goal by 2030 is to address poverty, education, homelessness, all of the things right, workforce. You know, a very, very audacious goal.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've had the privilege to serve on the board of that organization, be a board of trustee member, so I definitely want to make a connection for you with their new CEO, because I just think that there's an opportunity there just to collaborate. But now you know, I see that so many of us are realizing that we can't do anything alone and it does take the, the systemic approach. Are you, are you finding spaces more interested in cultivating that, advancing that? Where does this go? And how do people that are listening to this in spaces and places around the world think about aspects of, you know, human, human basic needs and ills of society? How do they think about tapping it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a couple of things have happened since that TEDx. I've spoken at a number of global and regional associations and I know from all the pings on Google all the universities who have cited and used my TEDx as kind of like a case for their classes, and so I know the word is getting out. But even personally for myself, during the pandemic, there was a task force developed here in the Greater Milwaukee area, where this was a very interesting time for us, where funders were asking the nonprofits what they needed. Like, how can we shift the narrative on how we've been doing things to be of greater support, rather than dictating, in an area that we're not experts at? So is it technology? Is it capacity building? Is it just financial resources? Like, how can we support in having you collaborate together?
Speaker 2:And I think what that also caused as a result are the nonprofits within this region working together to do group purchasing orders. So instead of just one nonprofit or one food pantry needing to buy 25 gallons of milk, getting five together and you're able to then buy 125 gallons of milk, so the cost on the margin goes down, yep. So, as a matter of fact, I'm working on a healthy food pantry pilot here in Milwaukee we're just doing a beta test with one, but the idea is, since that TEDx I've gone from food and security as a public health concern to now really focusing on nutrition, and in focusing on nutrition, it's transitioning it to the future of nutrition security Wow, that could look like. And so I've done a number of talks on nourishing our future and nutrition security as a public health imperative, where it's one thing to focus on getting people food, but now that I've been working in food as medicine, it's looking much broader at the consequence of just giving people processed food. Girl.
Speaker 1:The number in it. It's not OK to just film out of a sack with a whole bunch of stuff that, honestly, is going in me and going through me and doing absolutely no good and actually in a lot of instances it's doing a lot of harm.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it, and I'm not too my own porn peer when I say that was beyond my time. But I felt like food banks have been around since before the 80s and they were born out of federal programs where they had excess food. They needed local partners to help them distribute it on a wide level, and so they've been doing that, and it's like they haven't really changed the way that they've done things. And so for me, I always thought about well, what is the consequence? Because I was brought into the food banking system in the mid 2000s from the lens of how we look upstream. I was brought into the food bank to solve the problem of hunger, and in solving it you have to define it, and in defining it I realized that we talk about hunger, hunger, hunger. How do you solve hunger? Well, you can never solve hunger because it's a symptom, it's at the individual level. You can't measure hunger, it's a bodily symptom, and so a big issue in the spaces that I operate in with the food system is that we're not speaking the same language. So the way to do that is to solve for food insecurity, which is on an index, which is the level of how much could you afford the food that you ate in the last 12 months and how could you access it? What was your level of accessibility? So, to answer your question, what has happened since then? I've gone from the conversation of feeding America, not the organization, from the sense of getting people food, to truly nurturing America, looking at the impact, the quality, quantity, variety, the accessibility that the food has to the individual receiving it at the household level. And so since then, you have the definition from the USDA on food insecurity, but you also have the definition for nutrition and security, and I'm just excited about this because people are really picking up this conversation for the need to focus on nutrition security. And really nutrition security means the consistent access, availability and affordability of foods and beverages that promote well-being, prevent disease and, if needed, treat disease, particularly among racial, ethnic minority, lower income and rural and remote populations, including tribal communities. Chandra, we've had a definition for food insecurity and nutrition, for food insecurity, for sure, since the 80s. Most recently, I'd say since last year, has this definition been updated to include accessibility, availability, affordability, and that promotes well-being, which is the operative phrase.
Speaker 2:The reason why I focus on this is that last year, september, I had a chance to tune into the White House conference on health and nutrition, and why that's so important is that 60% of Americans have at least one chronic disease. 85% of US health expenditures are spent on chronic disease and that's a trillion-dollar industry of sick care, 74% relative increase in diabetes prevalence and near-low income versus higher income, and 87% of employers believe that the cost of providing health benefits will become unsustainable in the next five to 10 years. But when you think about that holistically, chronic disease has caused a health crisis in our country. It's draining society and killing our families, it's hurting the ones most with lower incomes and it's crippling employers. And if we talk about competing on a global society and if you didn't give me the first time with them versus us we don't start looking at this from a systems-wide approach and even understanding that something is broken, like we've really got to disrupt the status quo or these numbers will just continue to increase.
Speaker 1:Girl, woo Girl, when I wrote the book Proving Not Perfect, it was very much in the lane of a woman doing it all who was not taking care of herself because she was doing it all Right.
Speaker 1:And when I hear you and think about all that you're tapping into as it relates to healthy lifestyle, healthy thinking, but not them versus us.
Speaker 1:For all, girl, this work has to advance, right, it has to.
Speaker 1:We can't afford another global pandemic where we get caught flat-footed not having addressed some of these ills that are right here, right, but I do believe, as I come to learn, and actually some of the conversations that I've been having in podcasts that are going to be flowing, are all in this lane of health, even as I talk to my friends who are doctors, practicing medical physicians, who underscore the fact that Chandra folks need to be focused on staying well, care-free, steadying well, because once you get sick and you come into the system, the demands, the time demands and the inefficiency that exists because of escalating costs don't allow the health practitioners to really robustly offer you an understanding and diagnosis that can get you where you need to go.
Speaker 1:It's easier to listen very quickly, slap something on you, throw some meds on you and, in most instances, exacerbate the very simple problem to solve that could have been solved preemptively with food as medicine and lifestyle. It's a whole pivot of a conversation. Wow, all right. So I know we're coming to the end and there's probably going to be a podcast number two, because I feel like in so many ways we've scratched the surface and you're such an expert in this field that I know that there's more that we can tap into. But I'd love to talk a little bit about what you're doing now as an author published doing some really cool things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I do have my books and I always keep this one in my book. This is original Alex McGreen, the Tale of Mysterious Kale. And my second book, which I'm really proud of I probably it's in my car is Alex McGreen to the Black Toy Boys and it's all about healthy eating for children. The nature of the work and the area of food is medicine that I do here throughout Wisconsin is really focused on adults 18 and older, but I really truly believe that we're going to solve this issue and, as you said, be more preventative than reactive. It's important that we look upstream and I'm excited that I'm working, piloting some projects looking at baby in utero, right. So we're working on maternal health projects that focus on high risk, low income pregnant women who are at risk of developing gestational diabetes or preeclampsia, in just resulting in healthier birth outcomes. So we provide the meals, we provide one-on-one week coaching, we provide health biometrics. I mean we do need to do a part two for me to go through. We provide and remove every barrier to the diet and lifestyle challenge. So when you think that you know what is the barrier, there are six indicators that are in the way of people becoming healthy.
Speaker 2:Most free programs provide access and costs. That's what you get at food pantry. They'll give you a box of food. It didn't cost you anything. You have access to it. It also has to taste good, right. You have to have stuff that matches stuff that's relatively familiar. It has to save you time. You have to have some literacy around it, like how do I use this? And you have to have a little support. Like, everybody has a walk, not everybody has a full set of pans and good knives, right, and so, through the program that I lead, we've been able to combine freshly cold ingredients, locally sourced, balance of relatable and exploratory which I call culturally sensitive and create a diet profile in partnership with our registered dietitian, nutritionists and our culinary team to create these nutritional guidelines and profile which create these delicious, nutrient dense meals. And there's a lot of education that we provide around that, and so we not only tell you the things that you need to do, but we also provide you with those resources to take the guessing out of it. And there's a transition and a step down process to where, when you leave our program, you've transitioned to a place of self-reliance, and so I've been working on this since the summer of 2021. I started this in December of 2020 and really launched one of our first pilots, or series of prior pilots, throughout the spring of 2021. And it's grown to more than 300 people who have been to our program and specifically right now, the pilot with the maternal health. There's 120 women and, if you count the unborn babies, 240 lives that were impacting. But maternal health, as you know, is a very big challenge here in Wisconsin and through my book, I really focus on healthy eating.
Speaker 2:So Alex McGreen, the tail and the stear is kale is about a young girl who develops a vertical garden with her grandfather and there's an explosion of kale. So what do you do with a bunch of kale? You may kill cookies, kill chips, kill smoothies, may go kill crazy. But when you have abundance and you have a product that people love, what do you do with it? Well, you begin to market it. So part two, alex McGreen the bok choy boys, is her journey to entrepreneurship, as this 13 year old selling her products at the local farmer's market. It's cute, it's relatable. Wow, yeah, you can find it at healthygreencom, yeah.
Speaker 1:Say that again. Where can we find that?
Speaker 2:You can find the books at healthyfoodmovementcom.
Speaker 1:Healthyfoodmovementcom. I love that. Well, I will be probably gifting a few people this holiday season because I think that you know it's a season for us to start to be really intentional about the things that we do. So I'm so proud of you and I miss the hug, but the virtual hug will have to do right now. Keep doing it, keep rocking out and, yeah, I'm looking forward to us having many more conversations on Proving Not Perfect. I believe my community is gonna really love you. It's your community too, because that's how we roll. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me and I think from this definitely Proving Not Perfect, amen. Look forward to seeing you soon. See you soon, bye.