The Fresh For You Market, located in the Ingram Micro Mobility Marketplace on the Eskenazi Health downtown campus, continues to support Eskenazi Health frontline employees ensuring they have access to groceries and household essentials during the COVID-19 situation.

Open since June 2017, the Fresh For You Market was designed to address food insecurity, providing visitors, patients and staff easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables, pre-prepped foods, healthy snacks, convenience ingredients, kitchen utensils and pantry staples at affordable prices and in a convenient location. The market has also served as an educational space, with Eskenazi Health outpatient dietitians often holding live cooking demonstrations to help customers learn more about healthy cooking and eating, as well as providing healthy recipes and shopping tips.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in Indianapolis, the Fresh For You Market has proven to be an invaluable resource to Eskenazi Health frontline employees, who have found themselves working long hours and often times unable to make trips to the grocery store or find certain household items.

Seth Grant, director of food strategy and retail operations at Eskenazi Health, said he wanted to make sure that frontline staff were focused on patient care and not worrying about when they would have time to get their groceries or whether they’d be able to find the items they need. In addition to the regular offerings at the Fresh For You Market, Grant has stocked many items in high demand, including bread, eggs, deli meat and even toilet paper. The market also offers some cleaning items, such as sanitizer and disinfecting sprays.

Eskenazi Health has become a leader in local procurement, with nearly 60 percent of all food purchasing dollars spent on products from Indiana farms and food suppliers. Grant said the relationships built with these suppliers has greatly helped in being able to procure these popular items that are sold out in many local stores.

“Because we’ve been there for them, they’ve been there for us,” he said.

Darin Lucas, director of Eskenazi Health Safety & Security, said he was a customer of the Fresh For You Market prior to the COVID-19 outbreak but has become a more frequent customer as of late. He stops by the market several times a week, replacing items he runs out of at home and eliminating trips to the grocery store. Lucas said he’s purchased a variety of items from the store, everything from canned goods to spices to toilet paper – an item he knows is hard to find but one of which he’s never run out.

Lucas said providing a service such as the Fresh For You Market is another way of showing how Eskenazi Health strives to take care of the entire community, staff included.

“It just adds to the fact that I am very happy and proud to work for Eskenazi Health,” he said.

The Fresh For You Market is open daily from 6 a.m. – 2 a.m.; however, visitation restrictions are currently in place at the Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital. Additional details can be found here https://bit.ly/351zxcx.