"Thank you Catholic Charities for all services and support that I received."
After Rocio was introduced to Catholic Charities’ Brownson House Community Center in East Los Angeles, to help her provide for her family, Rocio was given fresh fruits and vegetables, utilities assistance, clothes and Christmas toys for her children. Subsequently being diagnosed with borderline diabetes, Rocio began participating in the center’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP, the federal program working to fight hunger in America, commonly referred to as Food Stamps.
At the time when she began the SNAP Nutrition Education Classes, Rocio struggled with controlling her diet and high blood sugar levels. Maria Cervantes, the Nutrition Educator at Brownson House, convinced Rocio that, through nutrition education, Rocio could manage some of her health challenges. Rocio welcomed this idea, and wanted “to change bad habits and to eat healthy.”
Within the third session of attending the nutrition class, Rocio successfully lowered her blood sugar by four points and reported losing some weight. Rocio continued on her path to developing a healthy lifestyle by also joining the Brownson House walking club and developing healthier ways of cooking, including reducing her sugar intake and choosing to eat sweet bread only once a month as a reward for making progress on her health goals.
Though she finds it very challenging to work in a restaurant and eat healthily, she reports to her Nutrition Educator and to her class that she tries not to forget all the things that she learns in class. Rocio says she is “practicing different ways to cook healthy food, looking on the website eatfresh.org, and using the recipe book that Maria gave out in a nutrition class. I can only say, ‘Thank you Catholic Charities for all services and support that I received.’”
