Last Friday, I headed south to Los Angeles, California to meet with our local partners at the Northeast Community Clinics. We met at the largest of their 11 clinics in the Los Angeles area, the California Family Care Clinic, located in the heart of downtown LA. There I met with Angie Armada, Operations Director, and Lupe Rosales, Clinic Manager. 

According to Lupe, the California Family Care Clinic alone sees about 200 patients a day. About 50% are indigent with no income and no health insurance. Many are living at or below the 200% poverty level, which means an annual income of $24,070 or less for a family of 4. “We have people coming in who have never seen a doctor,” Lupe explained. When I asked her what brings people to the NECC clinics she informed me that the staff they have are bilingual and culturally sensitive. NECC is able to provide their patients with free basic care, medicines, nutritional supplements and counseling. Lupe explained that by getting people into the clinic, they can provide the materials needed to prevent greater illnesses and emergencies.      

Our meeting was sparked by a donation from Vitamin Angels’ corporate partner, vitaminID.com. After running a three-month long Facebook campaign with a promise to donate a packet of vitamins for each Facebook fan they received, vitaminID.com was able to contribute 111 monthly packs of vitamins to help those served by the Community Family Care Clinic. The packs contain, among other supplements, multivitamins for women. Lupe told me that the vitamins received from vitaminID.com would help to serve adult patients, who are usually so focused on their children’s health that they often neglect their own.

Vitamin Angels also contributed 456,480 doses of children’s multivitamins to the clinics of NECC this year- enough to reach 1,250 children in the area. Lupe and Angie explained that these vitamins are integrated into nutrition programs like the ones at California Family Care Clinic. At CFCC, the nutrition services are separated into two categories. The OB program works with new and expecting mothers and focuses on establishing and maintaining a healthy baby weight. The Healthy Child program works with children with a high BMI who demonstrate a failure to thrive. A registered dietician and staff work with children and their parents to build education on nutrition and health living habits.

Angie informed me that there are many stories of families who have been transformed by the nutrition programs at CFCC. Families come with inaccurate beliefs about nutrition and their health and sometimes with a resistance to change their old habits. After working with NECC staff and receiving the tools to help them improve, changes are visible. “Families will go to the grocery store together and read the labels as a family,” she said. 

When I asked Angie what her hopes are for the future of NECC, she explained that currently, NECC’s main focus is on prenatal nutrition, “but we want to do it for the whole population,” she said. Lupe’s response to the same question was simply “to reach as many families as we can. And education is a must. We need to educate these families as much as we can.”  

Special thanks to Josh Minnick of vitaminID for his work in making the donation to NECC possible, and to Angie, Lupe, and Jill of NECC for taking the time out of their days to talk to me about NECC and their nutrition programs.  

Sarah Gasca

VA Development team