The lack of a grocery store means area residents have very limited access to fresh and healthy food. The closest supermarkets are nearly two miles away. So, Rhonda Vesey founded Food Access Healthy Neighborhoods Now, or FAHNN.
“I live right around the corner, walked over here to the Valley Plaza and I said to myself, this can't be," Vesey said. "We can't live this way without choice.”
The organization and its partners began hosting farmer’s markets in the plaza in summer 2022, and is holding them indoors for a second winter. It’s the kind of effort Senator Kirsten Gillibrand says might be one answer to the area’s food insecurity challenges, especially for those lacking transportation.
“I always thought you just need another grocery store, but I'm beginning to realize maybe that isn't just it," Gillibrand said. "Maybe you need a lot more in the food system. And so my first legislation when I started tackling this issue 10 years ago was grant money for a grocery store to move in to just give them a reason to. But I don't think it's good enough.”
Rhonda Vesey knows that traditional supermarket model might not work.
“The numbers just don't match the volume that have to go out the door to keep a grocery store open," Vesey said. “But we have done a lot of leg work with a lot of grocery stores that right now we just need a lot more help.”
That’s what Gillibrand’s bill aims to do. It would fully fund the USDA’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative, and double the allocation to $50 million in future years. The program provides grants and loans to fresh food retailers and supermarkets.
But Gillibrand and others say a store’s footprint might be smaller than the former 44,000 square foot Tops. The city successfully convinced Tops to open the store in Valley Plaza in fall of 2012 using $850,000 dollars in grants and tax breaks. It closed six years later.
