Obama Announces Healthy Food Financing Initiative - $400 Million for Rural Grocery Stores.

Rural Grocery Initiative

Local grocery stores represent a critical infrastructure for our rural communities. These stores are an important part of the economic engine that sustains rural communities, providing essential jobs and taxes. They are a vital source for nutrition and health, providing a supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and protein. These groceries are especially critical for the rural young, poor, and elderly. Grocery stores are where we meet friends, catch up on the latest news, build relationships and network with others. Grocery stores, like schools, restaurants, and post offices are community assets used to recruit and retain citizens, providing a symbol of community health. Unfortunately, it seems every day we hear about another store closing shop and shutting their doors. In Kansas alone, 82 grocery stores in communities of fewer than 2,500 people have closed since 2007. The following communication expresses the seriousness and immediacy of this problem.

Our city lost its grocery store almost 6 years ago. Our senior apartments are suffering since there isn't a local grocery and our citizens are having an outcry about not having one. My question is, can you give me any advice, anywhere to go? - City Clerk

Because the loss of a rural grocery store threatens the health of local citizens and the very existence of that community, Kansas State University and a broad range of partners are working to assist rural communities and their grocery stores. We have been collecting data on rural grocery stores by surveying store owners and rural grocery consumers, identifying and archiving the latest research, and talking with store owners, policy makers, and funders about grocery store challenges and their best practices.

We are now preparing to host a rural grocery summit on June 14-15, 2010 at Kansas State University. We are bringing together store owners, citizen leaders, academic researchers, policy makers, suppliers, and funders to talk with one another about how best to sustain this critical piece of community infrastructure. Specifically, the rural grocery summit will:

• Highlight the latest and best research on rural grocery store sustainability
• Provide rural grocery store owners and resource providers network opportunities
• Highlight the best practices of rural grocery stores from around the country
• Chart a path forward on: public policy options, innovative food distribution models, a rural grocery communication plan, and a research agenda.

Rural Grocery Store Summit II: Saving Rural America's Critical Infrastructure

Gove Community Improvement Association (GCIA) — A Kansas Profile

This is Kansas Profile. I'm Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

What happened at your local grocery store when the ice storm hit? Many stores struggled to provide needed supplies when an ice storm hit Kansas in December 2007. Today we'll learn about a rural Kansas store which found a way to serve its community members despite the storm - in part because the store is owned by the community itself. It's today's Kansas Profile.

Meet Von Tuttle, Cheri Remington, Marvin Beesley, Kassie Remington, Don Zerr, and Megan Tuttle, members of the Board of Directors of the Gove Community Improvement Association.

Gove is a rural place. It has the distinction of being the smallest county seat in the state with a population of 103 people. Now, that's rural.

It's a challenge to sustain services in a town that size. The local grocery store in Gove closed in the early 1980s. In 1986, a group of concerned citizens came together to reopen and operate a store. They formed the Gove Community Improvement Association or GCIA and founded the GCIA Grocery.

By the early 1990s, the local café had closed as well. In 1995, the GCIA built a new building with volunteer labor, local donations, and a ten year no interest loan from the local rural electric cooperative which has been repaid. This building houses the GCIA Grocery as well as a community-owned eating place called the County Seat Café.

For $25, a person can join GCIA which entitles them to charge their groceries at the store. I don't mean with a credit card, I mean that the store will keep a charge account for them which they pay at the end of the month.

The building is clean and well-maintained. But what is really unusual is that it is community-owned and directed by volunteers. There is a hired manager, but a board of volunteers gives direction and also provides legwork to operate it.

In 2006, GCIA purchased a local grocery distribution business. The wholesaler delivers groceries to GCIA which are then redistributed to other local stores. This helps all the stores meet the minimum purchase requirement from the supplier, as well as sharing needed produce or meat products. Board members and other volunteers step in to help sort the shipments each week.

The GCIA Board has seen first-hand the importance of having a store nearby for the elderly or young families. Cheri Remington saw this benefit while caring for her husband's grandmother. Or when there's a sick baby in town, someone is willing to open the store to get the medicine they need.

A dramatic example happened in the ice storm of December 2007. The power in Gove was out for five days, but the GCIA Grocery opened to serve the community. The store had no power and no lights, but they found a way to make it work.

Marvin Beesley says, "We had flashlights and people went through the aisles. We didn't have a cash register but we wrote down who owed what, and when it was all over, they came in and paid their bills. It's another convenience of having a local store."

They used a portable generator to keep the refrigerator and freezer going at the café, but there was too much in the store to save it all. So they took a bunch of food to the gas grill in the café, cooked it up and fed a bunch of people, including the linemen who were working on the down electrical lines. The café itself was unlocked, because the generator cord went through the café door so it had to remain open. People took food to shut-ins and neighbors helped neighbors.

Marvin Beesley says, "It wasn't a good time, but it was a lot of community togetherness."

So what happened at your local grocery store when the ice storm hit? In the case of Gove, the people of the community and the community store came together and helped each other through tough times. We commend all those who are part of the Gove Community Improvement Association for making a difference by sustaining that local service. That spirit of cooperation helps rural communities to cope with whatever might be in store.

For the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development, this is Ron Wilson with Kansas Profile.