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The Lynn Community Health Center Empowerment Series aims to help patients access vital resources as a way to improve their lives.
It is meant to provide practical and accessible information than can allow those in the community more power to manage their own lives, said nurse Reagan Crowley, a nurse midwife at the LCHC, who has coordinated the lecture series.
This week, the center will feature another seminar, “Cook Slow, Eat Well.”
The session, which will be held Wednesday, July 10 at 6 p.m., will focus on how to prepare a home-cooked meal in a crock pot.
Cooking at home usually provides more nutritious and less fattening foods than prepared meals, according to the LCHC. And crock pots allow you to prepare healthy meals ahead of time so that they are ready when you need them. Nurse practitioner Esther Mackenzie will provide information on how to cook with one.
“You can cook almost anything,” Crowley said. “Vegetarian, beef, anything.”
The program is a series of workshops and speaking events that is free and open to the public, and they are meant to “inform, educate and empower the community, providing information which can help people lead healthier, more independent lives,” Crowley said.
“The presentations also help inform our community about larger issues which affect us all and provide a platform for community connection,” she said.
Thus far, Crowley said, the LCHC has featured an expert on housing and human health, a presentation on disaster preparedness and a presentation on gardening with small budgets and small spaces.
At Wednesday’s presentation, people will get to sample the food, and at least one crock pot will be raffled off.
Future talks will focus on household safety, water safety, environmental pollution and what can be done to reduce it and climate change and health. The presentations occur generally during the first week of every month.
The project grew out of lists of information that patients often said they needed.
“I made lists of English language and literacy resources, job skills and training resources, housing and financial assistance resources and food and nutrition resources,” Crowley said. “Through the assistance of my coworkers we now have almost all of these information lists translated into Spanish and Arabic as well as English.
“Ultimately, we would like to act as a connector to help promote exercise clubs and groups, community action and groups that could help reduce social isolation,” she said.
