One Person Can Make a Difference

Louisville, Kentucky like other cities and communities is trying to address the opioid and addiction crisis. Mayor Greg Fisher in a statement said “the opioid crisis is a vital concern to public safety in this community”. Community groups and organizations are doing what they can to help.

One agency, Volunteers of America Mid-States, Inc. (VOA) is making a major impact in the lives of the people they serve, especially pregnant women who are fighting addictions. Freedom House Women’s Addiction Recovery Program. Freedom House provides residential treatment for alcohol and/or drug dependent pregnant women and women with young children. The comprehensive program is designed to treat the women’s chemical dependency, to break the cycle of addiction in families and to reunite families broken apart by addition, and to promote the birth of health, drug free babies.

Just like the evidence based research curriculum that we use, VOA, uses evidenced based clinical services model of recovery and family centered treatment. It was a great fit and I was given the opportunity to work with women in Freedom House through the Extension Program offering a nutrition component to their life skills classes. These women represent a segment of the low income, limited resource under served in our community. Since it’s creation, more than 100 babies have been born drug free to women in the program, ensuring a healthy start to their lives.

It was a challenge on how to engage these adult women, some who had their infants with them, to want to learn about healthier eating. Keep in mind they do not make the food selection or shop for their own food. However, since they are in transition they will be making those choices once they leave the residential house setting.

A lot of the women stated that they already knew how to cook and didn’t need anybody to teach them. I assured them that I would teach them about cooking healthier and selecting different types of food that would be better for them and their children.

I developed a relationship with the ladies over the eight one hour sessions I conducted. Usually I had between 10-15 per class session. I asked and listened to their questions about certain types of food and how they prepared their food. My main nutrition focus was on fruits and vegetables. One young lady said “I don’t eat any vegetables, they are nasty”. Before the end of our 4 week, she was trying some new and different vegetables and said she really liked them, She went on to say “I didn’t know I would like things I had never tried, and when I leave and get on my own I will continue to use the recipes and tips you’ve given us”.

It was very rewarding to see two of the former participant give their testimonies during the Volunteers of America’s Power of 1 Breakfast. They both talked about how the program had saved their lives and how grateful they were for VOA and the programs that it offered. One had been a former teacher before the addiction, she had returned to teaching and raising her beautiful healthy daughter.