Community Partners

Nuestras Raíces, Inc. is an urban agricultural organization located at 329 Main Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts, operating a five-acre farm and serving as the lead grantee for Nuestros Productos, a culturally responsive produce prescription program funded by a USDA Gus Schumacher Produce Prescription Grant. In partnership with the Holyoke Health Center, Community Care Cooperative (C3), and the UMass Center for Program Evaluation, Nuestras Raíces designed and implemented the six-week program to address food insecurity, improve dietary behaviors, and support cardiometabolic health among Hispanic/Latinx adults with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes who held C3 Medicaid or Medicare coverage. Across three cohorts from July 2023 to March 2025, the program enrolled 103 participants — predominantly older, low-income, Spanish-speaking women living at or below the Federal Poverty Guideline — who received biweekly produce boxes (up to 36 lbs. per household), bilingual nutrition education classes led by Darwin Cruz (Nuestras Raíces’ nurse and diabetes educator), and $20 gift vouchers redeemable at Nuestras Raíces’ farm or local farmers’ markets. While the program yielded marginally significant improvements in dietary behaviors (particularly reduced consumption of fried foods and white rice/bread, and better portion control), statistically significant changes in food security, nutrition security, and self-rated health were not achieved, largely due to challenges with recruitment through the health center, narrow eligibility criteria tied to C3 insurance, transportation barriers, and control group contamination within the small, tightly networked Holyoke community.