Douglas Flora, Executive Medical Director of Yung Family Cancer Center at St. Elizabeth Healthcare, President-Elect of the Association of Cancer Care Centers, and Editor in Chief of AI in Precision Oncology, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Who wants to help feed some hungry cancer patients?
Lately, I have been asking my patients a question unrelated to their scans. Are you eating? For too many people in active treatment, the honest answer is no. Or not enough. Or not the things a body fighting cancer actually needs. Cancer treatment is expensive, and so is missing work for it. The cost of groceries gets tough for so many during their treatments.
To help them, St. Elizabeth Healthcare opened a food pantry inside our Yung Family Cancer Center. Fresh produce, protein, and real groceries for patients and their families. Federal law prohibits hospitals like ours from providing this kind of direct support to patients. Those shelves stay full for one reason only: our community fills them.
Since June 2023, that generosity has added up. 140,000 pounds of food. 108,741 meals. 18,577 people fed. A second Nourish pantry opened in Fort Thomas in January 2025. Every month, we now also send prepackaged bags to patients at our Grant County Cancer Center.
The Horizon Community Foundation of Northern Kentucky has now created the St. Elizabeth Nourish Food Pantry Fund to help us keep this going. Thank you to The St. Elizabeth Foundation (you rock, Carri Chandler) and Horizon’s Nancy Grayson for helping get this built for us!
Donations to the St. Elizabeth Nourish Food Pantry Fund can be made online here.
I have spent my career arguing that a patient’s zip code should not outweigh their genetic code. Hunger during treatment is that same fight, stripped to its most basic form. A bag of groceries will not cure anyone. But for a patient choosing between rent and dinner in the middle of chemo, it removes one impossible decision from a week already full of them.
Kudos already to early supporters like Amy Grieme Floyd and The Joe Burrow Foundation, 80 Acres Farms, Kroger Health, Susan C., Dr. Brad Huth, and so many others. Can you or your company help us keep those shelves full? Just $5,000 covers a full month of food for our patients! Can you help?”
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