Food Insecurity

Addressing a Local Need

How This Project Began

In 2012 Dr. Lisa Chamberlain and other local pediatricians were seeing rising rates of food insecurity among her patients and their families. Not sure how to address this issue, she and Dr. Janine Bruce reached out to the local Ravenswood City School District to see if there were consistencies in this pattern. Ms. Ruth Woods, Director of Student Services at RCSD, said that teachers, staff and administrators were absolutely seeing high rates of food insecurity among their students and their families. When we asked how we could help, Ms. Woods simply said help me feed the kids and their parents over the summer. It was from this conversation that our collaborative efforts were born.  

History

Current Work

In 2023, OCHE's Dr. Bruce co-founded the Stanford Medicine Food Insecurity Coalition together with colleagues in Internal Medicine. This coalition unites institutional partners with a shared interest in addressing inpatient, outpatient, and community-level food insecurity. Partners include 20 community stakeholders and 28 Stanford stakeholders. In March 2025, Drs. Bruce and Chamberlain along with Dr. Ndidi Unaka hosted a design session to envision core strategies to address food insecurity across Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.