CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. — Staff at Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua are making sure once patients leave, they don’t have to come back.

They're accomplishing this with bags of food, each one filled with enough groceries to last a family a few days. Stacey Gibbs started the food pantry at Thompson Health in May after she noticed many patients deal with food insecurity and struggled when they left. 

“We’ve gone to the cafeteria and purchased things to send home with them because we knew they had nothing," said Gibbs. "Having this has been really exciting."

Nearly one in four people experience food insecurity throughout the Finger Lakes. Patients at Thompson are given a series of questions to gauge their need. Since the pantry started at Thompson it has helped 12 families. Each bag gets filled with not only food, but also bowls and can openers, along with information about other food resources in the area. 

“It’s not just a paper of resources in the community, go figure it out," said Gibbs. "It's 'here's a bag,' — two, three or four, depending on your family size of food and 'here's the resources.'"

Thompson Health partnered with Foodlink for most of the items while the rest comes from hospital food drives.