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.

March 2017 Garden and Wellness Update

March was another busy month for the Alliance Garden and Wellness Programs. Zumba is taking off, drawing 11 participants to our most recent session, the garden made it through a brief cold snap last week, and our Spring Seed to Supper Course with the Interfaith Food Shuttle has begun!

Garden Goods

Not too surprisingly the weather switched back to Winter again just before the Equinox on March 20th. With the help of row cover and some leaves we bundled up our veggies and only lost a few chard plants and some radishes. Many of our overanxious strawberry buds made it through the freezing temps. Otherwise our peas, lettuce, chard, are very happy and taking off to provide awesome nutrition, and education to our patients this Spring! Big thanks to our volunteers from Vintage Church and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority!

Beyond the cold we've planted 25 new Asparagus plants which will live 20+ years in the garden. We've even gotten some Alliance staff to get outside and get their hands dirty with some planting projects in the Garden.

Get Involved: Garden Launch April 8th 9am-12pm

Come see these beautiful veggies up close and personal. Volunteer at our Annual Garden Launch and Community Picnic on April 8th. We'll be working on some fun planting, construction and painting projects and blessing the garden for the year to come! RSVP as an individual or group here: RSVP Garden Launch

The Wonders of Wellness

It's been exciting to see our Wellness program growing and regaining its momentum in 2017. The Million Step Challenge is well underway in its fourth week and going great. Zumba is growing each week and we anticipate it becoming a permanent program for our patients! Perhaps most exciting is how patients have been able to expand on their investment in their health by going from one program to the next. 2 of our Cooking Matters Graduates are now in the Seed to Supper Class and almost all of our Zumba dancers want to enroll in the next Cooking Matters Course. We're so excited to be a place where people can connect with one another and make time for themselves to be healthy.

Million Step Challenge and Walk with a Doc

We're 4 weeks in to the challenge and we can't wait for the next 12. Many of the walkers are already reporting weight loss and have been able to connect with and support each other in getting their steps in every day. The leader board features  walkers hitting at or near 20,000 steps EACH DAY. That's 10 miles! Our Saturday Walks have been going great too and we're excited to see them grow as temps rise. Come join in the fun every 1st, 2nd, and last Saturday of each month at 10am at Alliance!

Zumba Creates Community at Alliance

It's been amazing to see community grow around our new Zumba class. The class is primarily attended by Spanish Speaking women who now get to catch up week over a 45 minute Zumba session. We're so grateful for our bi-lingual volunteer instructor Paula who helps foster these connections. Although there are only 2 weeks left in our current series we're already planning the next one and possibly expanding the program to include a strength training session after the Zumba class.

Growing Gardeners at Alliance

This month we started our newest class of future Raleigh gardeners in the Interfaith Food Shuttle's Seed to Supper Course. Through this partnership we are able to host the class for 3 Alliance Patients and about 10 others from the surrounding community. Our 3 participants (2 Cooking Matters Grads and one hopeful) will soon have their own garden plots in the Alliance Community Garden!

Thanks for your support and for reading. Please reach out if you'd like to find yourself more involved at Alliance!

We're excited about all the good work ahead and we hope you are too.

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

February 2017 Garden and Wellness Update

By Jesse Crouch, Garden & Wellness Coordinator

Community Garden Updates

We enjoyed the benefits of many 70+ degree days in February, sending the Alliance Community Garden into bloom!  We're a little weirded out, but the warmer temperatures haven't set back our radish, lettuce, and pea sprouts that are making their way into the world.  We're also celebrating the fact that our strawberry transplants are healthy and adjusting well to the garden! The deer seem to like to stroll through out strawberry and pea beds but we're just grateful they aren't grabbing a snack as well.

We do hope Father Winter didn't completely check out so that our spring crops like lettuce, arugula, and spinach don't just all go straight to seed. But if that happens, more tomatoes and squash!

1: Radish seedlings. 2. Pea sprouts and trellis. 3. Pea spouts. 4. Deer hoof prints in strawberry bed.

 

Good lookin' and cookin'

It's been a very busy month in the Wellness department! Cooking Matters has been a blast with our new students and we hosted our kickoff dinner for the Million Step Challenge Program.

Cooking Matters has been a hit with our new passionate students! It's been exciting learning more about nutrition facts, the importance fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, how much protein you need, what foods have to most protein! And all over amazing recipes like Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burgers, Veggie Fajitas, Sweet Potato Curry, and 3 bean Veggie Chili. We're excited for the remaining two weeks of the course.

The Million Step Challenge kickoff went off without a hitch! Seven Alliance Medical Ministry staff, five WakeMed staff, three N.C. State University Park Scholars, and five volunteers came together for a delicious meal and to enroll 31 Alliance patients in the Million Step Walking challenge!  

The Million Step Challenge officially begins on March 1, with the goal of achieving a million steps within 120 days.  Alliance will kick-off its Walk with a Doc program on Saturday, March 4 from 10-11 to enable our patient participants to "get their steps in".  Thanks to WakeMed for providing FitBits to all participants!  

We're excited to post updates as our physicians and their awesome teams of patients challenge other clinics and community groups over the next four months. Stay tuned!

Zumba is on the horizon at Alliance!  We're so grateful to have found a volunteer instructor to deliver a six-week course to our patients.  Zumba comes on the heels of a success SalsaFit program offered in Summer 2016.  

We're so very blessed, excited, and hopeful in 2017.  Each day, Alliance staff serves a community of the strongest and most wonderful people I've ever met. Thanks for your support and for reading this blog. Check us out in March. Things will be wilder yet! (also like us on facebook)

Stay groovy, Jesse Crouch, AmeriCorps Garden and Wellness Coordinator

January '17 Garden and Wellness Update - Jesse Crouch

We're only a few weeks into 2017 but the new year is already bringing us hope and excitement, and we are looking forward to making this year a wonderful one! We'll be introducing bees, a hoop house, and more perennials, including asparagus, blueberries, strawberries, figs, and pears!

With carefully coordinated wellness outcome tracking, we will be able to hone in on patient impact of new programs like the Million Step Challenge and the Diabetes Prevention Program.  We look forward to expanding our offerings of Seed to Supper and Cooking Matters, and continuing yoga, a patient favorite.  Follow all the happenings each month through this blog!

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". - Lao Tzu

Garden Flourishes Despite Wild Temps

Despite the early January snow that blanketed the Alliance Community Garden and the single-digit temperatures, our spinach, arugula, kale, carrot and beets survived, insulated from the single digit temperature by the snow and their row covers.  We even had a few special four-legged visitors to the garden during those snowy days!

In the wake of the snow storm, we're excited for our new plantings!  The Kirk of Kildaire Presbyterian Church's Community Garden donated strawberry bush seedlings, which we have transplanted in the back of the garden.  After a successful germination test, snap pea seeds are in the ground; in a few months, they'll be covering our bamboo trelis.  We'll be excited to see the "fruits of our labor" in a few months!

Wellness in the Works

Weekly yoga and diabetes education continued in January, and we are gearing up for exciting spring initiatives, including the launch of the Million Step Challenge and kick-off of the Diabetes Prevention Program. 

Alliance Medical Ministry is excited to participate this Spring in the Million Step Challenge with WakeMed Hospital!  The Million Step Challenge begins on March 1st, with Alliance medical providers each leading a team of ten patients to reach one million steps by June 15.  Each day, patients and providers will aim to reach 9,000 steps to achieve this goal!  Alliance will offer a weekly "Walk with a Doc" to help our teams achieve their goals, and encourage community members to jump in and offer support.  Alliance competes with teams from WakeMed Hospital, Advance Community Health, and the Open Door Clinic.  The team with the most steps at the conclusion of the challenge WINS!  We're excited to be more involved in our patients' exercise routines and to see what we can accomplish together through the challenge!

February will also kick off our new Diabetes Prevention Program in partnership with the YMCA, led by former Garden and Wellness Coordinator, Ashley Toscano.  In this 12-month program, pre-diabetic Spanish-speaking patients will work to achieve the goals of losing 7% of their body fat and exercising 150 minutes each week.  For a portion of the program, patient participants receive YMCA gym memberships and are encouraged to exercise with friends and classmates.  We'll check in on their progress over the course of the year!

Cooking Matters kicks off the winter six-week program this week, teaching nutrition to participating patients as well as skills to cook, meal plan, and shop for healthy food items on a budget.  Be sure to follow weekly updates and recipes on the Alliance Facebook Page: facebook.com/alliancemedicalministry 

Peace be with you fellow travelers! 

Garden and Wellness Report Fall 2016

 

Late Fall Garden Updates

Pounds of produce harvested this year to date: 2,170!

It's been an interesting Fall in the Garden! Unusually warm temperatures have kept our plants growing late into the season. The frost has come, but many brave veggie endured the nights in the low 20s, including our spinach, kale, turnips, and arugula, providing essential nutrients to our patients.

Thank you to our late Fall garden volunteers:

Church on Morgan

Crosspointe Men's Group

Edenton Street United Methodist Church

With their help we've installed our new irrigation system, planted fall vegetables, and prepared the garden for the Winter months.

New Pollinator Garden Installed

Boy Scout Griffin Bensen led fellow scouts in his Eagle Scout project -- designing and installing a pollinator garden!  Among the pollinator plants found in our new garden are climbing aster, purple coneflower, St. John's Wort, and Butterfly weed.  These plants will help attract bees and local pollinating insects to our garden.

Exciting plans for 2017!

While the garden is resting this winter, we are gearing up to plant more blueberry bushes, a small strawberry patch, and asparagus in the garden come Spring.  

We are excited to announce that we are bringing BEES to the Alliance Garden! Alice Hinman, founder of Apiopolis, is providing support to bring two bee colonies to the Alliance Community Garden in April! 

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Late Fall Wellness News

Chair Yoga

Yoga continues to be a great and popular program for patients and is held every Thursday evening in the clinic. Instructor Elise from "You Call this Yoga" incorporates mind, body, and spirit into her classes, giving patients stress relief, and an increased sense of value. The class is offered in English and Spanish.

Cooking Matters

We had a great Fall Cooking Matters Course, graduating eight students! These patients now have increased knowledge and abilities to use food as medicine for themselves, not to mention a new great group of friends. Big thanks to all of our volunteers that made the course possible! Our next course will begin January 23rd, 2017.

One of our favorite recipes was brought to us by volunteer Lori who led the class in making chickpea stuffed sweet potatoes and fruit smoothies. Here are the recipes for you to try at home:

Mediterranean Chickpea Stuffed Sweet Potatoes with Hummus Sauce

Vegan, Gluten-Free

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE STUFFED SWEET POTATOES:

4 large sweet potatoes, washed, ends trimmed, and then slightly halved

1 15.5-ounce can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained

A drizzle of olive oil

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Salt and pepper, to taste

FOR THE HUMMUS SAUCE:

1/2 cup hummus

1/2 of a lemon, juiced

3 garlic cloves, minced

Fresh or dried parsley, for topping

PREPARATION

1.      Preheat the oven to 400°F and line your baking sheet with a silicone baking mat. Rub each of the potato halves with a bit of olive oil. Place each potato, cut side down on your baking sheet trying to keep them to one side.

2.      In a separate bowl, add your chickpeas, a drizzle of olive oil, and spices. Mix to coat. Then, pour them out on the baking sheet (opposite the potatoes) and place in the oven. Roast until the potatoes are cooked completely through and the chickpeas are crunchy. Remove from the oven and let sit for a few minutes to cool.

3.      While the sweet potato is cooling, mix the sauce together until thinned out and able to pour.

4.      Taking the back of a spoon, press down the centers a bit of each potato. Place on a serving platter and then add the chickpeas. Drizzle the sauce on top of each potato and serve.

Simple Green Smoothie

INGREDIENTS

2-3 cups leafy green of choice (kale, spinach, arugula, mustard, turnip greens, radish greens etc.)

3-4 cups fruit (bananas, berries, oranges, apples, mango etc.)

1 cup water (add more or less to determine thickness)

PREPARATION

Add ingredients in blender and blend until smooth.

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Exciting Wellness Plans for 2017!

Walk With a Doc and the Million Step Challenge

Winter weather and early sunsets have Walk with a Doc on hold until our next meeting on February 23rd at 5:15pm.  Join us for a snack and good company on this 1.3 mile walk around the block, open to patients and community members!

This March, Alliance is excited to participate in the Million Step Challenge with WakeMed and other healthcare organizations! Thirty Alliance patients will participate to make up three teams of ten patients.  Each team will be led by one of our providers, Dr. Sheryl Joyner, Dr. Maggie Burkhead and Nurse Practitioner Laura Wasserman.  Each patient participant will receive a FitBit, with the goal of walking 10,000 steps each day to meet the Million Step Challenge!  Stay tuned in the New Year to find out more about the kick-off!

Zumba

We're excited to be hosting our first zumba class on December 19th from 7:45-8:45pm.  The class will be low impact and appropriate for all fitness levels. No dancing experience or rhythm required!

Any zumba instructors interested in becoming involved at Alliance can contact the Wellness Coordinator at garden@alliancemedicalministry.org or 919-250-3320 x 436.

Garden & Wellness Report, Early Fall 2016

Garden Report

We have harvested over 2,000 pounds of produce this year! 

Thank you to the volunteer groups who supported our garden in September:

9/11 Service Day with Franklin Academy Middle School

In partnership with ActivateGood, Alliance hosted a 9/11 service day on Friday, September 9th. We are so grateful to have been able to work with such a terrific group!  Thirteen volunteers assisted with garden tasks; we weeded, pulled up old crops, harvested, prepared raised beds for new crops, and re-mulched the pathways of the garden.

Garden Workday Volunteers

Thank you to those individual volunteers, as well as the youth groups, churches and businesses who have volunteered in our garden!  In September, we had the pleasure of working with Franklin Academy Middle School students and RSM.  Thank you for helping us clean out our summer garden and prepare the beds for fall vegetables! 

Our fall and winter garden is underway! Here's what we've been planting:  Carrots, radishes, turnips, rutabagas, kohlrabi, kale, collards, lettuce varieties, spinach, mini broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, as well as red and green cabbage!

Thanks to funding from the City of Oaks Foundation (Urban Agriculture award), we have extended the water line in our garden. Our next step in irrigation is to install a drip hose system. We hope for this to be completed by the end of October.

Plans for a pollinator garden are in the works, as well! Our hope is that this garden will bring even more beauty and environmental education to Alliance's community garden.

Wellness Program Report

Cooking Matters

Cooking Matters is a cooking and nutrition course that helps families 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.

At the first Cooking Matters course, Alliance patients learned about cooking and food safety, cooking terminology, how to read food labels, and how food portions have changed over the years.

Patients prepared a Coconut Corn and Kale Chowder soup with a side of some homemade whole wheat oat and millet bread.   We hope you will enjoy the recipe!

Coconut Corn & Kale Chowder

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Makes approximately 6 servings

Ingredients

1 medium whole leek, cleaned and chopped (or substitute with onion)
2 cloves garlic, minced (more to taste)
1 jalapeño pepper, chopped
4 small red potatoes, cleaned and thinly sliced (you can use other types of potato, too)
1  15-ounce can of low-sodium chickpeas (garbanzo beans) or other bean of choice (navy or great northern work well), rinsed and drained
1 cup frozen corn
1 14-ounces can lite coconut milk
1 ½ cups low-sodium vegetable broth, divided
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes
Black pepper to taste
½ tsp. salt (or try no salt)

*This recipe is very flexible with substituting and adding vegetables. Add some leafy greens (like kale) to add some flavor and even more nutrients!

Directions

1.        In a large soup pot, sauté leeks, garlic, jalapeño, and potatoes in ½ cup vegetable broth over
         medium-high heat until vegetables are tender.

2.        Add chickpeas or desired type of bean, corn, coconut milk, and remaining vegetable broth.

3.        Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes until potatoes are tender and soup has thickened.

4.        Serve hot.

At the second Cooking Matters class, participants learned about the similarities and differences between fresh, canned, and frozen fruits and vegetables. They also discussed shopping for seasonal produce, learning how to make easy substitutions in recipes, and the importance of choosing whole grains.

The cooking portion included preparing a dish that incorporates fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. This has definitely been the best recipe yet! Our pineapple quinoa stir-fry included carrots, celery, bok choy, green onions, hot and sweet peppers, peas, peanuts, quinoa, garlic, basil, and ginger. Check out the recipe below! Please note that this recipe is very versatile. You can easily add or substitute ingredients.

Pineapple Quinoa Stir-fry

Makes approximately 4-5 servings

Ingredients

Quinoa:

1 cup quinoa, well rinsed and drained
1 cup pineapple juice (to reduce sugar intake, water or low-sodium vegetable broth can be used)
1 cup cold water
1/3 tsp soy sauce (low-sodium)

Stir-fry:
4 ounces cashews or peanuts, raw and unsalted
3 TBSP peanut oil (to make this oil-free, substitute it with water or vegetable broth)
2 scallions, sliced thinly (regular onions are a great substitution)
2 cloves garlic, minced (or more to taste)
1 hot red pepper, sliced into very thin rounds (optional)
½- inch piece ginger, peeled and minced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 cup frozen green peas or cooked edamame
½ cup fresh basil leaves, rolled and sliced into thin shreds
2 TBSP finely chopped fresh mint
10 ounces fresh pineapple, cut into bite-size chunks (about 2 cups)
3 TBSP vegetable stock (low-sodium)
3 TBSP soy sauce (optional)
1 TBSP mirin (optional: this can be left out)
Lime wedges for garnish

Directions
Quinoa

1.       Combine the quinoa, juice, water, and soy sauce (optional) in a medium-size pot.

2.       Cover, place over high heat, and bring to a boil.

3.       Stir a few times, lower the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook from 12 to 14 minutes until all
         the liquid has been absorbed and the quinoa appears pumped and slightly translucent.

4.       Uncover, fluff, and let cool.

5.       For best results, place the quinoa in an airtight container and refrigerate overnight. If you’re in a
        hurry, chill the covered quinoa for at least an hour. When ready to use, break up any chunks of the
        cold quinoa with a fork. (Optional: you can use the quinoa right away & the result is still great!)

Stir-fry

1.       Use the largest nonstick skillet you have (at least 11 inches in diameter) or a wok.

2.       Have all of your ingredients chopped and easily within reach.

3.       Place the cashews or peanuts in the dry pan and heat over low heat, stirring them, until lightly
        toasted, 4 to 5 minutes.

4.       Remove the cashews or peanut from the pan, raise the heat to medium, and add the peanut oil,
        scallions, and garlic.

5.       When garlic starts to sizzle, add the sliced hot pepper and ginger. Stir-fry for about 2 minutes,
        and then add the bell pepper and pea or edamame. Stir-fry for another 3 to 4 minutes, until the
        bell pepper is softened and the peas are bright green.

6.       Add the basil and mint, and stir for another minute before adding the pineapple and quinoa.

7.       In a measuring cup, combine the soy sauce (optional), vegetable stock, and mirin. Pour over the
       quinoa mixture. Stir to incorporate completely and coat the quinoa.

8.       Continue to stir-fry for 10 to 14 minutes, until the quinoa is very hot (it helps to use two
        spoons/spatulas to scoop the quinoa around).

9.       Serve with lime wedges, if desired.

Seed to Supper

Alliance Medical Ministry hosted its fall Seed to Supper course from August 9th to September 13th. We had a total of 14 fantastic graduates! Community members and patients gained valuable information and hands-on experience with gardening basics. Alliance partners with Inter-Faith Food Shuttle and NC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners to educate patients and community members on the process of creating and growing their own gardens. Upon completion of the course, all graduates received basic tools, organic fertilizer, seeds, seedlings, compost, and continued support.

Interested in the next 5-week Seed to Supper course? Contact The Community Garden & Wellness Program Coordinator.

Chair Yoga

Chair yoga continues every Thursday evening from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. at Alliance, taught by instructors from You Call this Yoga. Patients have had great success in taking a step towards bettering both their physical and mental well-being. The class is taught in English and Spanish.

Walk with a Doc

Walk with a Doc is a great way to get up and get moving while engaging with Alliance's providers and getting to know other community members. Join us every fourth Thursday from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. at Alliance. This month's walk with be held on Thursday, October 27th.  The walk is just over one mile, and water and snacks are always provided! Please note: due to the holidays in November and December, Walk with a Doc will take place on the third Thursday at 5:30 PM. Please be sure to check Alliance's upcoming events page to keep up-to-date on weather-related cancellations.