This is a blog series that follows the UW Farm Spring lunch seminar on Food and Justice. While these posts are targeted to students in this class, everyone is invited to view the material and reply to posts. You can view the course webpage here.
This week Branden Born, a professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning, came to speak with us about the Delridge Healthy Corner Store project.
Delridge is one of the few areas in Seattle with low access to traditional large-format grocery stores, but has a number of corner stores within walking distance. This project’s goal is to work with individual store owners to increase the amount of healthy, fresh food that is sold.
As Born walked us through the concept and overall project, he touched on a number of important challenges facing community-based organizing and food justice issues:
- Community-based organizations can be overburdened and underfunded. What are the limitations and possible solutions for this kind of system?
- How do you work to create a community-oriented system when individual corner store owners come from different backgrounds and view each other as competition?
- How do you keep the cost of produce low when individual store owners must buy in small quantities?
- How do you incentivize supporting programs like WIC, which have complicated regulations and minimum order amounts?
You can view the images from Born’s slideshow here:
Jeanine Carlson responded to the first class post with ideas for ways to address these complexities, and I’m reposting this here in the hopes that these thoughts are responded to. The approach was to incorporate CSA drop-offs into stores.
“I really think here could be something here… WIC is specific but there’s also food stamps and regular ole cash. The markets have a few options to begin exploring:
1) Markets could simply serve as a drop-off location for CSA delivery. Customers pre-order, pay the CSA online and pick up their box at the participating market.
2) Markets could take pre-orders, pay for a group order and accept food stamps or cash for desired items, rather than gamble with an order elsewhere and hope it sells.
3) A few times a year WIC offers coupons for shopping at farmers markets. Local stores could still order through the CSA for these events only and act as the go-between between the farmers and the customers.
I pick up my CSA box from the steps of a house in a neighborhood, CSA’s are always open to new sites hosting as a pick-up location.”
The challenges we face in our current system will be difficult to address, but it’s a worthy cause. What can we learn from the Delridge Healthy Corner Store Project, and how can these lessons be applied to other community-based endeavors?
Also, how did the NPR interview on food providers and farmers relate to this discussion?
Next week we will have Sue McGann from Solid Ground come and talk about their programs, especially Marra Farm. Please watch the Winona LaDuke and Majora Carter videos before class. You can find links to both on the course webpage.
I believe the healthy corner store is a really innovative and progressive way to address issues of food justice in urban deserts. Not only is it empowering the consumers in those neighborhoods, but it is connecting store owners, businesses, and the community. They are building a relationship and a foundation for success considering the interests of all the stakeholders. This project will not only increase access to healthy fresh food which will improve the physical health of the residents it will also improve the overall community health. The corner stores will prosper and the economic stability of the neighborhoods will begin to increase.
This organization recognizes the special circumstances that have marginalized the population in these neighborhoods and isolated them from healthy food. They realize that this situation has emerged because of larger societal problems, economic inequality, politics, and perhaps racial discrimination. There is an understanding that transportation is one of the factors limiting access and therefore the toolkit allows the solution to the food access problem to arise from within the community. The organization has partnered with the community to start a dialogical relationship in which the community has its agency restored. From this position the community is in charge of its own management and progress towards a healthier lifestyle.
This is a more sustainable and empowering model in which to address the issue of food justice. The role of the community organizer is to provide assistance, resources, knowledge, and training that may not otherwise have been available for this project. However, these tools should be used to support the community initiatives, not any preconceived plan that outsiders control and push on the community. They provide a connection to the national Healthy Corner Stores Network to create solidarity between these communities and other embarking on similar movements across the country. I think this will be a successful approach to food justice because of the commitment to communication and focus on thinking relationally. It is also an ongoing process which creates more stability and trust in the interaction between the organization and the community.
Even though his presentation did not affirm that there was a large success margin, I believe they are taking the right approach. It is always hard to change the status quo and take a stand against the capitalistic powers and ideals of society, but that is the direction we should be moving in.
The healthy cornerstore project is an interesting concept with so many facets to it. From how the project was described with mutual benefits for both the store owner and consumers, it seemed that more than one cornerstore would have joined in with the project. It is discouraging to hear that many of these projects are not fiscally sustainable. But the lessons learned will hopefully glean new ideas and approaches.
I think Jeanine Carlson’s suggestion of markets serving as a drop-off location for CSA delivery could work out to be a quite functional approach. This would be convenient for customers who have access to a computer and/or cell phone to pre-order and pay online and give them flexibility to order produce of their choice. My concern would be for those who do not have access to the internet or do not speak English as a first language. It would be interesting to find out statistical demographic data in relation to access to the Internet.
I also enjoyed the presentation by Born. As someone who has worked in community based organizations for ten years, resources and funding are always a challenge. The success of programs like these involve a lot of relationship building and education. Unfortunately, health education/ promotion are often some of the first to be cut or are only funded for a limited period of time. While this program is incredibly innovative, I think it is incredibly challenging to “measure” the results of programs like these in the way that funders/sponsors require them to demonstrate success.
As Born was speaking, it is so clear that there are multiple systemic barriers facing everyone involved. I am sure that some of these were anticipated, but they have clearly learned so much as they have begun to engage community members. I am interested to know how many of the store owners actually live in the neighborhood. This could have a large impact on their investment to engage in community efforts like this as well.
Ultimately, I think community engagement programs such as these are necessary and should continue. However, in order to address the systemic challenges, there should be partnerships and engagement on a policy level as well.
I enjoyed the presentation about corner stores because it made me think about the stores located in my local area. I was also surprised that he mentioned about corner stores in Denver because I used to live in Denver for 2 years and there is many corner stores present. The reason I think corner stores are not being implemented enough is because big corporations such as Safeway and QFC are dominating the food market. These corporations tend to receive more profit and are able to operate. This is why I think it is important to implement a new approach like these corner stores into neighborhood areas. It will allow the community to get involved with what food stores they want in their area. It will also increase the access to healthy foods. Implementing them close-by to neighborhoods will also make them more attractive to the public because they will be easier to access then Safeway or QFC. The reason these corner stores are underfunded is because some owners can not afford to operate the store, they are not being funded enough by programs such as WIC, or they are not high in demand in some areas. Possible solutions to this problem are: Getting the community involved (support and development of ideas), advertise through the internet, newspapers, or TV to spread the word about corner stores, and choosing locations where corner stores will be attractive and high in demand.
Competition between corner stores is something that is difficult to avoid but instead store owners who come from different backgrounds should look at the bigger picture: competition with Safeway and QFC. Corner store owners should work together to make corner stores more attractive and popular among the community. For example store owners can develop a partnership that will help both corner stores. Combined revenue can help each store owner fund their store so they can keep it in operation. It can be a downside if one of the store owners doesn’t abide my the partnership contract. So it depends on a strong partnership between the store owners. The Delridge Healthy Corner Store Project has a very effective plan in the development of corner stores and I think it should be implemented in other communities. I think this idea can also be applied to other community-based organizations such as farmer’s markets. Farmer’s markets are becoming more active in today’s food market. If they implement Delridge Healthy Corner Store Project’s idea they could possibly turn themselves into a corner store.
The NPR interview was related to this presentation because it discussed about the idea of providing healthy food to city communities by the use of corner stores which the Delridge Healthy Corner Store Project is implementing. The interview also mentioned about community-based involvement which the Delridge Healthy Corner Store Project uses in their corner stores. Overall I really enjoyed the presentation and it made me think about all the corner stores in my local area!
This whole issue is pretty frustrating. The “healthy corner store” model is entirely reactionary. This is to say, running a slightly more ethical store is still participating with the violence of capitalism. The economic and social structures that require subversion in order to reach egalitarianism are in no way being subverted. In fact, these supposedly progressive stores are a vital component of capitalism – simultaneously appearing to promise a new direction while reinforcing the same rotten structure. This is no small worry, as the violence of capitalism is entirely responsible for the dispossession, marginalization, criminalization and oppression of communities of color.
I don’t want to live in a world of more and better supermarkets. That’s not the issue we’re grappling with.
The presentation that was given on Tuesday was interesting in the sense that it provided a relatively new idea that convenience stores are making an attempt to engage healthier practices for their customers. It attempts to address issues of access to healthy food. However, while it addresses the idea of healthy food, it doesn’t address affordable food. (understanding that convenience stores are often run that way) Also when I think of convenience stores, I think of convenience. You go there for impulse purchases, not getting anything that you really NEED. So when I think of planners trying to design a store that fits the needs for lower-income families, I really think we need to reconsider what is the purpose of the convenience store? Now I don’t think Seattle is a great example, because Seattle does provide a relatively good amount of quality (note: not necessarily healthy) food to residents in Seattle, including the homeless. But in many urban deserts around the country, where convenience stores are prevalent and chain grocerys are not, our idea of a convenience store is their idea of a grocery store. Now obviously that can’t be a good thing. Restructuring the purpose of a convenience store (or should we say a ‘small’ grocery store’) is what I think is needed. I think it’s important for store-owners to earn a living wage with a more diversified healthy selection of products. Getting back to the challenge of affordability is challenging. I don’t like the idea that store-owners are buying their ‘fresh’ produce from mega-stores, which creates dependence. Policy should allow for more flexibility when it comes to accessing food from farmer’s markets, CSA’s or other local agricultural produce. Maybe this is more expensive, but convenience stores shouldn’t have to rely on mega-grocery stores to access their food that ultimately contributes to the growing economic inequalities within the capitalistic system that we live in. While the WIC offers promise to low-income families that need access to healthy food, I’m still skeptical whether it would work to protect store-owners protect their livelihoods and get enough people to eat healthier. Good start though, needs more flexible policies, more community involvement, and education.
From the previous presentations and Branden’s, I feel the issue of food justice is like those that we will never come up with a resolution to. New problems keep arising but solutions are getting more difficult to obtained. In the presentation, we saw the how limited the corner store provide healthy food for the community, yet they don’t work together to create a stronger community with easy access to healthy and nutritious food. Although the people come from different backgrounds and each corner store is a competition to another, they must think first of how long that will last if the community doesn’t get the nutrition it need. If they work together first, they will create a stronger and better community, and that is when competition can really rise.
I feel surprise that the people who actually care about the problems are the people that are not in the communities that doesn’t have access to the healthy food. For example, in Branden’s presentation, we see the people of Delridge. They only have little corner stores that sell mostly manufacture food and barely any produce. We can see that the problem is that it cost money and the owners don’t work together because of the competition. However, these issues should not prevent these people to do something about it. Would you rather own a store right now and make short term money or work together first, build a better community, and make more money later? I would choose the latter.
Overall, the communities need to be educated. In the NPR interview, they stated that some people only know what’s inside their community, they have not step outside to be able to explore what is out there. If the people are able to see what is available and how it can be access to them, they will be more motivated to change their situation.
People (especially children) are becoming overweight due to easy access to junk and fast foods. Everyone needs to eat and if we were only exposed to healthy items sold at stores and McDonald’s, we have no other option but to eat those items available to us. My high school was surrounded by two fast food restaurants (Burger King and Dairy Queen), and a 7-Eleven (and what’s interesting is that there’s also a hospital located directly across the street!). Students would rush to one of those places during their half-hour lunch break. A hungry student + the smell of French fries = an irresistible temptation. Ever since I’ve become a student UW, I try to find healthy food and places to eat on campus, and it seems to me that there’s not much healthy food at By George or at any of the small on-campus cafes. As we mentioned in class, some corner store owners tend to favor items that are convenient for them to order, stock (or have the companies come in and stock for them), and sell, which are primarily unhealthy items with a long shelf life. Convenience will only toxic our health. I believe that some store owners may want to sell fresh produce, but they lack the skills and knowledge to do so.
I think that we can change the items sold at the corner stores by first educating the owners on how to maintain fresh fruits and vegetables – to help them make the transition from selling items with a long shelf life compared to a short shelf life. Some corner stores have low quality infrastructure and equipment. Local organizations, agencies, and volunteers can help make physical improvements to the stores by cleaning, painting, setting up displays and help with advertisements. If we all worked together to support each other, our communities would have easy access to healthy food, which would most likely decrease the high rate of heart disease and other illnesses. Residents have a key role to play in demonstrating interest in healthy options and they should inform the store owners which healthy products they would like to see at those particular stores. This would allow the owners to get an idea of which fresh fruits/vegetables are most popular in their community. In addition, community members can help promote healthy items in stores by getting the word out to their neighbors, conducting taste tests or cooking demos or organizing health fairs. Overall, I think that healthy corner stores is a great way to increase access to healthy goods and help make a difference in the health of our communities.
(@Ian: Agree with your comment and am glad you’ve posted it here.)
I’m frustrated by the way we (let’s say “we” is our class, for the sake of this post) think of the healthy corner store as some sort of novel idea. Without a real grounding in urban development and organization, it might be easy to think that healthy corner stores are a unique way to combat urban food desserts and rebel against the big chains, which have been around “forever.” This just isn’t the case. Having “healthy” corner stores is a *retreat* back to old ideas, pre-Albertsons, pre-Big Boxing of America. I’m very curious to know how residents of West Seattle obtained good, fresh food prior to, say, the 1960s.
One of my best friend’s fathers used to own a corner store in a predominantly black neighborhood in Chicago. (He is not black). He was part of an information association of convenience store owners that *specifically* scouted for cheap real estate in poor neighborhoods and explicitly talked about ways they could exploit the patrons in that neighborhood. During Born’s presentation, he kept emphasizing the message presented to storeowners — “don’t worry, you can still keep making money. We know that’s the bottom line.” Of course people should be able to earn a livelihood, but in the case of corner stores in poor neighborhoods, it’s often one minority pitted against another. How does giving the storeowner incentives to carry healthy items really address the bigger issues in those neighborhoods?
Born also skirted around the “if you build it, will they come?” issue and also pointed to children/high schoolers as a malleable audience. I’d really like to see some numbers on the impacts a health corner store makes in an neighborhood, especially when there are others around that haven’t made the conversion. As for kids — yes, they may be able to talk very articulately about food justice, but when they’re rushing to class and are faced with the (more expensive) salad bar vs. a ready-to-eat, cheap, processed option, which one do you think they’ll take? I can say from direct experience that more often than not, for a multitude of reasons, they’ll go for the faster, cheaper option. School lunches are sometimes less than 30 minutes long. Office employees often get just 30 minutes. Good food isn’t also cheap or convenient (though it cane be), so if we really value eating well, then we also need to rethink the ways we implicitly and explicitly demonstrate that, especially to our kids.
The NPR interview talks about consumers in inner city communities that “don’t know what they are missing.” I take some concern with this. Its interesting that in the interview, the speakers expect that once fresh foods are made available- “people will come.” Even in the discussion about education, I have to ask: Do folks in these neighborhood even know what to do with the vegetables – etc, once they are made available? It brings up concerns to me about culture.
Folks are used to eating poor quality foods. I have a nephew that even if fresh food is in front of him, he wont touch it. How do you address peoples eating habits?
If a DQ is taken out of a neighborhood, and I want a DQ burger, I will just drive to the next nearest one… Something to ponder.
I would be interested to see a study done on the 1) demographics and 2) what food the population would like to see sold at corner stores, that isn’t already being sold there in food deserts. I can’t help but notice that I haven’t seen many concrete numbers backing up some generalizations in the articles and in the presentations we have heard. Perhaps this is because of the nature of the pieces being written, and not because there are not any such numbers.
I have to wonder if there is a demand or not for produce in these stores-because if there was, theoretically corner store owners would be much more willing to sell produce to have an edge over their competition.
And as for the contention of whether corner stores compete more with other corner stores or grocery stores, that is a VERY local issue. In my experience, its all about 1) access to the cheapest goods. If you can drive or walk somewhere cheaper, you will. And 2) customer rapport. If people like a store owner/
employee they will come in more often. My family owns a local cards&gifts store; many of our return customers are people that have come to know us and enjoy just coming in to talk to us, and oh hey, Lily’s birthday is coming up, honey do you think she would like this doll?
I think a big part of the availability of healthy corner stores has to do with the local area income. I know personally I grew up in the Rainier valley which is not the highest of income areas, and there just plain isnt alot of variety… much akin to what the clean greens people were talking about. I now live in the montlake area and there are no shortages of small healthy corner stores, (atleast 3 I can think of in a few blocks) and I know that theres a big resurgence of locally owned business in nice areas. Go take a trip to queen anne, or laurelhurst and you see all kinds of stores (some bordering on ridiculous) just because people have income to spend.
To me its simple in its enormity, which is to say the problem is simple, but the solution isnt – Growing up in a low income house, there never was an option to buy healthier if it meant paying more. The small corner stores are a business, and like the speaker said they wont stock stuff that wont make them money, and when it comes to produce they just cant compete. Personally, I love to eat healthy foods, but if they’re not on sale I wont even think twice. The solution to the problem is a tough one though, as the speaker mentioned the system as it is with the distributors isn’t very fair… but how can you change it? I have much respect for people who spend their lives championing a cause, and I think until we get a new era Cesar Chavez (referring to the social justice aspect) things wont really work. I think it has to come from within the community, much like the clean greens people. I loved the enthusiasm of the speaker though, and I respect what hes trying to do enormously.
Further in response to the J. Wanskasmiths post I agree, our culture’s so used to eating nutritionally poor but cheap food it plain wont be easy to get people to want to change, I think we in Seattle are pretty forward thinking, but elsewhere I know of people who eat out at diners for almost every meal. A good way to visualize how some people eat was this set of photos I was shown from my conservation Bio class last qtr:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html
Not all americans eat like that… but thats kinda gross.
I love the idea of markets simply serving as a drop-off location for CSA delivery. This makes it easier for customers to pre-order, pay the CSA online using their credit cards and pick up their box at the participating market. This is so convenient for those who don’t have time to go and search multiple stores for healthy food.
However, would the prices for these orders be cheaper than staying with just cheap junk foods from the corner stores? Growing up in a middle class family and neighborhood, we often resorted to cheap grocery food stores simply because they were close and were available in bulk. The only problem: these foods would expire in 2 days even when left in the fridge. But we have no other way of saving besides relying on these markets. Even if the food quality isn’t as good, this was our only means.
Also I would like to know if these corner store project has progressed into the neighborhoods of Seattle or Renton? It is a bit easier to start something like this in Delridge, but how do you manage to do the transformation into a big city like Seattle? And how would they compete with Whole foods, PCC, and etc.?
I think that Branden Born’s work with the Delridge Healthy Corner Store project exemplifies a lot of the struggles that exists within working for positive change within the food system. I think that one of the most difficult is to ensure that the community is involved, that they understand what you are trying to do and to ensure that what you are trying to do will actually benefit the local community. I think that a comprehensive approach is the only way to create a project that will really hold in a community, one that will stick around for a while and really have a chance to inspire positive change. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to include all of the stakeholders, and it is even harder to get them all in a room together. However, if they are not consulted a great deal of energy, time and resources could go into a project that does not have a significant impact on the community it is trying to help.
After hearing Eddie Hill speak this week I think that projects like this could really benefit from more collaboration. There are many organizations that are overburdened and underfunded but there is also a growing number of volunteers wanting to work on projects like this in the Seattle area, and funding overall keeps growing. If several organizations could combine their resources they would have a lot more to work with. Not only would they have more funding but they have a potentially more diverse group of people with different experiences, contacts in the community and understandings about how to improve the food system.
After listening to the presentation by Branden Born, I became curious to how it started. After some research I found out that the idea of bringing healthy food to corner stores began in Pennsylvania. In the last five years the campaign called the “healthy corner store initiative” has gone national and been adopted in New Orleans, Hartford and Seattle. In Hartford, 35 small stores were enlisted when the Mayor and Catholic Diocese decided it was a moral crusade to bring healthy food to the inner city. In King County the movement is about making healthy food accessible and affordable. Food deserts, such as Delridge, have disproportionately high rates of chronic diseases. “The Delidge project is really our first pilot project and we’re so fortunate to have a committed group of community organizations, community residents and youth who are focused on making the situation better for their community.” Erin McDougall is Program Manager for Healthy Eating with Seattle-King County Public Health.
The groundbreaking work in Delridge and White Center was made possible with a grant from the Kellogg Foundation. While a new grant, $15 million from the Centers for Disease Control or CDC, will allow the county to expand healthy corner stores throughout South King County and Central Seattle.
I personally think that this project is a good idea, but how will the consumers know its availability? I think most stores are hesitant to carry healthy goods because they think that it will go to waste because it won’t be purchased. It is important to advertise the availability of the healthy goods so that the consumers in the neighborhood would know about it. I feel that as a part of the project, an educational campaign needs to be included so the efforts won’t be wasted.
I enjoyed when Brandon Born came to our class because his hope for healthy corner stores is something that I never really thought of. I’ve grown up going to the huge supermarkets for my groceries because that was where we shopped. We didn’t have farmer’s markets near us or healthy corner stores. Now that I live in U-District, I do have access to the Saturday farmer’s market or a CSA. And I’ve noticed a few corner stores on the Ave, but as he spoke to us, I realized the thought never occurred to me that I should go into one. I recently went into a 7-Eleven and looked at the produce section. It was not surprising that the produce didn’t look fresh or that I wanted to buy some. I thoroughly support the concept of healthy corner stores because I do want to support my community, by not mainly going to Safeway or Trader Joe’s for my produce. I’ve also recently wanted to order CSA and think Jeanine’s idea is really great. I haven’t looked into where a local CSA drop-off is in the U-District, but I’m sure we could always use more locations as people realize they should be getting their produce from places besides Safeway.
This was a fascinating presentation. Branden was a wonderfully dynamic speaker and clear thinker. I didn’t really understand the severity of the food desert issue before this presentation. The idea that there are huge swaths of people living off of Doritos and canned tuna makes we want to wretch, especially if it’s only because they don’t have a convenient way to get to a grocery store.
The results of his study, however, were sobering to say this least. That simple logistics has made it nearly impossible to have a real impact in these neighborhoods is terrifying. There has got to be another way. Maybe community run grocery stores would help. Putting the burden on undereducated store owners who are struggling to make it seems incredibly difficult. Perhaps, if the goal was simply to educate these store owners about business skills instead of trying to get them to do something in particular, they would be a much more attentive audience when you try to get them to pick products that are positive for their community.
I think the Healthy corner store idea is an interesting one and it definitely has some positives to it but it is if anything a short term solution. If you wanna look at the positives it gets a small amount of fruits and vegetables to people who likely would not be able to have access to them on a regular basis but the roadblocks presented make it a very difficult process to go through. For one the fact that the store must carry the baby formula which is very hard to get access to deters many potential stores that would support the idea. The fact that these stores also only have a limited amount of space inside makes it difficult to carry fresh clean vegetables and fruit. although i completely support trying to give access to these things to people it just is not enough the people need to be educated and taught that they need these things and not the fatty junk food that we see in these store. I volunteered at a food bank for about a year and while i worked there i noticed almost always people went for the processed name brand foods and the meats but rarely took vegtables when they came in. What i got from this was a few things, first people need to be educated about what they should eat that junk food isn’t going to be good for your body and is going to have a negative long term effect. the other main thing this really showed me is the impact of advertising, and it wasn’t just at this food bank that people would take the name brand food items, when we go in stores we always take the name brand that were familiar over something like a Safeway brand simply because we’ve heard of it. Someone needs to get fruits and vegetables out there, create a name brand that when people see it on their fruits and veggies they can see that they have heard of it. Now i know that the ad budget for something like this isn’t going to be like that of McDonald’s or something but if we could run a few ads maybe we could get the idea to a few people and establish a brand name. If this happens maybe more corner stores would start carrying these name brand vegetables because more people would start buying them.
Just to let you know, this page appears a little bit funny from my smart phone. Who knows perhaps it really is just my phone. Great article by the way.