Chester County Food Bank (CCFB) has partnered with Chester County Hospital’s OBGYN Clinic, a practice of the Chester County Hospital Penn Medicine, to better serve patients who are identified as experiencing food insecurity.

Chester County Food Bank has been a long-time partner with Chester County Hospital stemming back to the CCFB’s origination in 2009.

“In 2017, we partnered with the hospital to offer Prenatal Grocery Boxes to assist pregnant mothers at risk of food insecurity,” said Catie Hargraves, Director of Agency Relations and Distribution at the Chester County Food Bank. “The Prenatal Grocery Boxes are designed to provide expectant mothers with nutritious foods rich in vitamins and minerals needed during pregnancy.”

“Food insecurity can have severe health consequences, especially during pregnancy,” said Chester County Hospital Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Lynne Rudderow. “The Prenatal Grocery Boxes were an initial step to better serve our patients and their families. As we increasingly screened patients for food insecurity it became clear that we needed to do more to provide direct service and food offerings to food insecure individuals.”

The food pantry at the OBGYN Clinic officially opened in October 2022. In its first month of service, the pantry served 50 households, totaling nearly 200 individuals and over 50 percent of those served were children.

CCFB recently awarded the pantry $1,000 in ACME Market grocery store gift cards as part of the ACME Markets Foundation and their Nourishing Neighbors Foundation which awarded CCFB $10,000 of grocery gift cards to be distributed through CCFB’s network of partner agencies.

Learn more about Chester County Food Bank and Chester County Hospital.