ROCKPORT — As part of its ongoing commitment to increasing access to healthy food, Pen Bay Medical Center is set to host a meeting of the Knox County Food Council.

The meeting, which is open to the public, is scheduled for Tuesday, April 9, at 5 p.m., in the Beebe Health Center, located at 15 Anchor Drive on the hospital campus. This meeting will begin with a one-mile walk along the Pen Bay Wellness Trail.

“We know access to food is an issue in Knox County,” said Deidre Dority, a Community Health program manager at Pen Bay and Waldo County General Hospital and member of the Knox County Food Council, in a news release. “We see it in our patients and in our community.”

The Knox County Food Council formed in 2019 as a cohort of citizens, organizations, and businesses in Knox County advocating for a community-based healthy food system for all. Dority joined the council’s steering committee in late 2022.

“The council’s mission is so important and really in line with what we are working toward with our Help Yourself Shelves,” said Dority.

Introduced in 2022, Help Yourself Shelves are stocked with healthy, nutrient-rich food and everyone is welcome to take items from them. Pen Bay currently has shelves at Pen Bay Walk-in Care at 22 White Street in Rockland and on the second floor of the Beebe Center on the hospital’s main campus in Rockport.

“Offering resources where people have already traveled to get to an appointment creates a low-barrier option that allows patients to choose foods that work for their families,” Dority said. “It’s a drop in the bucket of what the needs are in our community, but we’re moving in the right direction,” said Dority.

The Knox County Food Council meets the first Tuesday of each month and all meetings are open to the public. For more information, visit: aldemere.org/programs/outreach/kcfc/.

Pen Bay Medical Center 

Pen Bay Medical Center is part of MaineHealth, a not-for-profit integrated health system consisting of nine local hospital systems, a comprehensive behavioral healthcare network, diagnostic services, home health agencies, and more than 1,600 employed and indepen diagnosis and treatment to 1.1 million residents in Maine and New Hampshire. For more information, please visit pbmc.org.