Open Hand has partnered with the Administration for Community Living for a few years now to expand access to quality, accessible, and evidenced-based nutrition education provided by Registered Dietitian Nutritionists. Last week, we officially published the twelfth and final (for now!) video on our website for folks to access.
The program, GRITS (Georgians Receiving Insightful Telenutrition Services), originally intended to reach home-dwelling or congregate meal older adults, particularly those in rural areas who may otherwise have barriers to access nutrition education resources. The goal was to develop and standardize virtual nutrition presentations appropriate for use in senior centers across Georgia.
As the project went on, we found the reach could be expanded to older adults living in residential buildings and other institutions, as well as a variety of other age groups. As the hope of the project was to create content that can be freely shared across the nation, this only further expands the accessibility of these videos. Additionally, our on-demand library can be used as a first step to understand Open Hand’s mission and services, therefore broadening the reach of our mission and the food is medicine movement.
Thankfully, the project has much possibility: feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with nearly 90% of participants indicating they'd like to continue lessons in a virtual format.
We hope to continue to build upon the on-demand library for a total of 24 videos, and further build out our resource library as a whole so that everyone, no matter where they fall on the socioeconomic spectrum, has access to nutrition education created by experienced Registered Dietitian Nutritionists.
