Meet Joan, Food Outreach Home Delivery Client

After her diagnosis of lung cancer, Joan was struggling to get the nourishment she needed to get through her chemotherapy and immunotherapy. A nurse referred Joan to Food Outreach for nutrition counseling and support, but Joan was worried she wouldn’t be able to get to Food Outreach since she and her husband are housebound. Joan was thrilled when she learned that Food Outreach offered a home delivery program and would deliver scratch-prepared entrees and sides as well as nutritious groceries right to her door.

Almost immediately, Joan noticed that the side effects of her cancer treatment lessened. Joan especially likes the chicken dishes and the butternut squash macaroni and cheese. “This food is such a huge help to people with cancer and getting treatments. You get tired. You’re tired and having to go and make a meal is very hard. But with Food Outreach you just need to heat it up. It’s just so easy and delicious. You look forward to it because it is so good.”

The home delivery program enables Joan to receive the monthly box of scratch-prepared entrees and sides along with nutritious groceries and fresh produce. However, it also offers Joan emotional support with the handmade card included in each delivery box. “I always love receiving the hand-drawn card that someone drew for me that has encouragement for the cancer person. It just shows that someone who doesn’t know me is rooting for me. And it helps. I’m one of these people, when I get a card, I put it out on my desk so I can see it for a month. I would hang onto that card until the next one came, and then I would put that one on the desk. And just to read it every day gave me encouragement—just to know that people out there don’t even know me are praying and rooting for me.”

A waitress for 46 years at the original Massa’s Italian Restaurant, Joan knows good food. She was their longest serving employee until she was forced to retire due a depressed disc in her neck. “I was lucky to find a job where I could talk and get paid. I loved it. I loved it.”

After rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy, Joan is on the road to recovery. “I’m one of these people that when things go bad, I find a way to laugh at it and go on. And when they gave me the diagnosis of cancer, I didn’t get depression or anything. I just said, ‘I’m in God’s hands’ and whatever he did—I’m okay. I could be one of these miracles because my primary doctor told me that my body is responding so well to this immunotherapy. It’s how he hopes all his patients would respond to it.”