Pictured left to right: Barbara Santos, United Way Board Chair; Tina Pollock, Memorial Medical Center Chief Operating Officer; Sy Neilson, Sutter Health Plus Commercial Marketing and Plan Communications Director; Francine DiCiano, United Way of Stanislaus County President/CEO; and Catherine Larsen, Sutter Health Central Valley Marketing and Communications Director

Sutter Health Plus recently donated $65,000 to the United Way of Stanislaus County community health initiative, CHEF. In addition, Memorial Medical Center and Sutter Gould Medical Foundation, both part of the Sutter Health network, donated $10,000 to the program.

Launched in 2015, the CHEF program teaches students healthy eating through the universal art of cooking. CHEF offers hands-on meal preparation lessons, fresh food bags and health education to elementary school families.

Sutter Health’s total investment of $75,000 will assist the CHEF Program to provide an 18-pound bag of healthy food twice a month to over 370 students at Caswell and Bret Harte Elementary Schools. All food in the bags will be held to the USDA’s nutrition guidelines and each bag will include a recipe card. The funding also supports program expenses and food for cooking classes held once a month for parents at the school sites.

The CHEF program is led by the United Way in partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank and the University of California Davis Cooperative Extension along with Ceres Unified School District and Modesto City Schools.

“As a not-for-profit hospital, Memorial Medical Center has a long history of collaborating with local groups to improve the lives of those in our community,” said Tina Pollock, Memorial’s Chief Operating Officer. “Along with our Sutter Health Plus and Sutter Gould Medical Foundation partners, we are proud to continue this tradition by providing financial support for the United Way’s CHEF program. We wish the United Way the best as they continue to build the program and help families learn about healthy eating.”

“Our CHEF program provides families in need with the knowledge and resources to keep their families healthy. We are not only supplying healthy food, but teaching the skills necessary to sustain healthy eating habits,” said Francine DiCiano, President and CEO of United Way of Stanislaus County. “We are proud to provide a well-rounded program from nutritional lessons for kids and parents, hands-on cooking classes, recipes and the fresh food needed to prepare meals. We are pleased and grateful for our partnership with Sutter Health for the generous support of CHEF and United Way.”

“We’re proud to do our part to help educate students and their families about nutrition and provide access to healthy foods,” said Monica Majors, vice president of Strategic Sales and Marketing at Sutter Health Plus.