For several years the Kenton County Cooperative Extension Service’s Nutrition Education Program (NEP) Senior Assistant has partnered with St. Elizabeth’s Primewise Group to offer programming for senior adults.  PrimeWise is a free program to adults 55 and over offered by St. Elizabeth Healthcare Systems. PrimeWise offers free educational events and opportunities for their clients in the northern Kentucky service area.   In the fall of 2021, St. Elizabeth was continuing to provide virtual classes due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.   PrimeWise and the NEP Senior Assistant partnered together to offer Healthy Choices for Every Body in a virtual format. Almost 20 senior adults signed up for the program, but several dropped out after learning that the series would be presented virtually. Four senior adults preferred a virtual program and joined the weekly session as the NEP Senior Assistant taught the participants the importance of making healthy food choices, planning meals, making a grocery list, purchasing food wisely, storing and preparing food safely, and budgeting their money to make it go farther.  The NEP Senior Assistant did a food demonstration and shared the recipe with the participants so they could make it at home.  At the end of the series, the NEP Senior Assistant met the class participants at the Extension Office to give them a bag of kitchen tools and a recipe book to reinforce the concepts they had learned throughout the series.

By the summer of 2022, St. Elizabeth Healthcare Systems had begun hosting in-person programming again, and they partnered with the Kenton County NEP Senior Assistant to offer an in-person class of the seven-lesson series Healthy Choices for Every Body. The NEP Senior Assistant taught the participants the importance of making healthy food choices, planning meals, making a grocery list, purchasing food wisely, storing and preparing food safely, and budgeting their money to make it go farther. Each week she would prepare a healthy, low-cost delicious recipe for the participants to sample.  Each week she would give the seniors a kitchen tool to use at home to reinforce the day’s lesson. The information in the class reinforced much of what the seniors had learned throughout the years, but some of the information was new to the participants. Nine senior adults completed the series.  One participant said, “This class has challenged me to start meal planning for my husband and me, so we can save money at the grocery.  Planning meals ahead of time has helped us to save time and money.” Fifty-six percent of the participants began planning meals more often by the end of the series.  Forty-four percent started to use a meat thermometer more frequently. According to data from a University of Kentucky Food and Nutrition Specialist, every person who receives education regarding some aspect of food borne illness prevention, saves their state an estimated $1,000. Potential savings to Kentucky citizens, businesses, and government due to food safety education included in this Healthy Choices for Every Body series is $4000.

This partnership between St. Elizabeth’s PrimeWise group and the Kenton County NEP Senior Assistant continues to thrive, and plans are being made to offer one or two more series in the upcoming year.