Project: Food & Liquor Update

"The Food & Liquor project exists to quell produce emergencies during those evenings when you need cilantro, now." -Arline Welty, Project Leader

Over the last few months, the fabulous and hungry Food & Liquor project team has surveyed Uptown stores to see where fresh produce is already sold and where there's an opportunity to sell produce. The team has worked with diverse local community organizations and representatives, and national non-profits. Most importantly, the project team has been very busy meeting with local store owners and finding distributors to supply interested stores.

In fact, one of the major challenges they've discovered is that most produce distributors cannot offer the small orders that local corner and liquor stores need. However, the team is very excited to have connected with True Nature Foods, which can provide small orders of produce to interested stores in the Uptown area. With a potential distributor secured, the project volunteers have been visiting interested store owners to shop the menu of possible produce for ordering and to help troubleshoot problems related to produce storage. So with continued neighborly persistence, the crack team expects that stores will soon shift from being just interested to actively selling produce. At that point, the project team will concentrate on working with store owners and community organizations to market the new store offerings to the entire neighborhood.

Support the end of cilantro emergencies -- and fresh food access for all -- in Uptown ... and help us turn the Uptown experience into an easy how-to guide that you can use in your neighborhood. Donate $10 today - the price of a six pack and a candy bar!