Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Inner-city clinic adds mini-grocery service!

Inner-city clinic adds mini-grocery service
Janet French, The StarPhoenix
Published: Tuesday, April 22, 2008
You can see a nurse or doctor there, meet with a counsellor and sometimes, get your teeth cleaned for free.

So, you might as well buy a few carrots while you're looking after your health.

The SWITCH inner city clinic is adding yet another service to its roster of community projects -- once a week, it's a mini-grocery store.


The Student Wellness Initiative Towards Community Health, which gives students in the health professions a place to practise their skills and inner-city residents more access to health services, has teamed up with the Child Hunger and Education Program (CHEP) to bring affordable food into its post at the West Side Community Clinic.

SWITCH co-ordinator Carole Courtney says the program is buying boxes of healthy food -- including fruits, vegetables, eggs and cartons of milk -- and selling it to clients at cost.

"You may not be able to afford a bag of potatoes but SWITCH will be happy to sell you two for a quarter," Courtney said in a news release Monday.

The move is "small but necessary" for an area whose residents do not all have good access to grocery stores and therefore, healthy food, she said.

It was a logical extension of SWITCH's aim of health promotion, Courtney said.

At the clinic, which operates Wednesday evenings and Saturdays, students in medicine, nursing, social work, clinical psychology, pharmacy, nutrition, kinesiology, physical therapy, public health, arts and science, educational psychology and dentistry volunteer and professionals act as mentors in their fields.

Courtney said the decision to sell affordable food isn't related to the government's move to pull back $8 million in funding once destined for Station 20 West, an inner-city development that was to house a co-operative grocery store and several health services.

"We had decided to do this some time ago," she said.

"It doesn't matter who has the idea. The fact is that people in our community don't have access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables. . . . Someone's got to do it."

The SWITCH Food Store is open Wednesdays from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 631 20th Street West.

jfrench@sp.canwest.com




© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2008

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