VA's Healthy Living Team aims to provide healthy foods to veterans

Cultivating vegetables helps veterans raise more than fresh food, it helps lift their mental well being. Each year in conjunction with Earth Day, the John J. Pershing VA Medical Center staff, as part of the wellness program, help vets plant tomatoes and peppers.

Retired Army cook Alfred Brew of Jackson, Missouri, comes every year to get a tomato planted in a bucket with a unique irrigation system. The veterans are able to turn a five gallon bucket into a self watering container.

“It gives me purpose and also helps my mental psyche,” Brew said. “These are reasons I like to grow my own vegetables.”

This year, the veterans could choose between planting a tomato or a pepper and each vet left with an instruction sheet on how to use self watering container.

Other veterans were 1st Sgt. Robert Lewis (retired) of Piedmont and Carl Fox of Poplar Bluff.

VA RN Sheri Farmer, who also is a master gardener, adds the finishing touch to container garden. DAR/Barbara Ann Horton

The annual bucket gardening class truly is something veterans look forward to every year, said Ashley Maples-Aubuchon. She is a board certified registered nurse in gerontology and has a masters degree as a nurse educator.

“Each year, in observation of Earth Day, the Healthy Living Team hosts a bucket gardening class for veterans to create a planter suitable for growing vegetables. All supplies are provided; veterans just have to show up the day of the event,” Maples-Aubuchon said.

“Securing a food source from nature supports the environmental protection efforts coordinated globally on Earth Day,” she said. “The annual bucket gardening class supports the mission of the Healthy Living Team which is to keep veterans well and well-informed.”

The Healthy Living Team, also known as Health Promotion Disease Prevention, is a group of health care professionals focused on preventing premature death and improving the quality of life of veterans. The team provides tools and resources to veterans to empower them to take charge of their health through self-managed care.

Maples-Aubuchon shared information about the upcoming food pantry at John J. Pershing VA Medical Center.

“The Healthy Living Team has been presented an exciting opportunity to partner with the Southeast Missouri (SEMO) Food Bank to improve our veterans’ health and well-being,” she said.

This partnership has secured a monthly mobile food pantry located on the hospital campus known as the Veterans Healthy Food Surplus.

“The Veterans Healthy Food Surplus will serve to provide veterans in need,” she said. “Those experiencing food insecurity are more likely to get diet-related chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, so creating access to healthy foods and education is needed to improve the health outcomes of our veterans.”

Veterans will be offered free, healthy food donated by the SEMO Food Bank. The first Veterans Healthy Food Surplus will be held Wednesday, June 26 and then reoccurring on the fourth Wednesday of each month from 8-10 a.m. or until all the food is distributed.

It’s designated location is under a tent at the walking track. Eligibility of recipients is determined by the veteran-status. Veterans are encouraged to bring a Veteran identification card. Participants who are not veterans will be referred to other food pantries in the area, she said.

Others helping with the planting were Sheri Farmer, a registered nurse at the VA, as well as a master gardener; Corey Crutchfield, PTSD therapist; and Dan Stroud, who said, “I just allow them to use my pavilion” as he helped Maples-Aubuchon with a bag of potting soil.