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Welcome to “Paying it Forward,” a monthly interview series made possible by Piedmont Health. In this series, we hear from the folks at Piedmont about the importance of community health centers – and why they chose a career in community health.
This month, Aaron welcomes Alisha Bailey, who’s been working in public health for the last 15 years. She got her start in Wake County, working with the WIC program – and then about a decade ago, she came to Piedmont Health, where she serves today as their WIC breastfeeding manager.
“I realized that lactation and food equity were incredibly important,” Bailey says. “So I became a lactation consultant in 2014, and that just happened to line up with an opening at Piedmont Health…and I’ve been there ever since.”
Bailey says it was her firsthand experience with hunger as a child that led her to pursue a career tackling food insecurity.
“I grew up on a farm in coastal New Hampshire, (and) farming is a very hard thing to be in,” she says. “So I grew up with food insecurity, in a place of food abundance – (and) it was just a very challenging experience, being surrounded by food that was for others and not for me…
“And when I did my undergraduate degree, I realized there was a place where I could help ensure that other people were not food insecure, that kids had food in their school lunches, and that they had food on the table at dinner time.”
Bailey says the issue of food insecurity fluctuates with the strength and weakness of the economy, but it’s always a serious concern.
“There’s always food insecurity, always families struggling to put enough food on the table,” she says. “(And) it tends to have health impacts. Kids tend to struggle paying attention at school when they’re hungry. All they can think about is trying to find something to eat, they can’t pay attention. So you see kids not graduating high school. And making sure they have access to food so that they can stay focused on their studies, especially for elementary school age when they’re setting that foundation, is critically important for their success. It leads into the success of their lives going forward.”
Bailey says after 15 years in public health, she’s still motivated to keep going every day – and she says more than anything, it’s the people who inspire her.
“The people we serve are just amazing,” she says. “Everybody that works at Piedmont is there because they feel so passionately about supporting the community, and it’s just inspiring to go to work every day.”
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