DENVER – Denver’s Elyria-Swansea neighborhood, which has been considered a food desert for decades, will soon have a new grocery store.
For months, the East Denver Food Sovereignty Initiative, a group made up of community leaders, has been holding community meetings to hear from neighbors and garner their opinions.
“This neighborhood has lacked fresh and healthy food options for a really long time. It's been voiced over and over, tons of surveys have been done to try to evaluate what are the needs of this community. And folks have mentioned a grocery store, pharmacy, veterinary hospital, lots of these kinds of basic needs. So there's definitely a big need, a big gap here for fresh, healthy food,” said Flor Marquez, East Denver Food Sovereignty Initiative project manager. “There's lots of corner stores who have some of these options, but sometimes they're a little inaccessible. Or maybe folks don't realize that they can go to these places to get their basic kind of fresh food needs met. Also, you know, lots of folks have to drive outside of the neighborhood to like the Walmart on Quebec, or there is a Natural Grocers on Brighton Boulevard now, but that can be inaccessible and pricey as well.”
Marquez said the grocery store will operate as a cooperative.
“This is going to be owned by the community itself… One of the big differences of this project as well is that we're really trying not to be direct competitors to those local bodegas or corner stores. We really want to work with them, and try to be creative about ways that they will also benefit and be able to participate in this process,” Marquez said. “We're really going to try to have people's basic needs met when it comes to having fresh, healthy food options and culturally relevant foods.”
Marquez said the ultimate goal is to become less dependent on big agriculture and to create opportunities for food producers, small farmers and local farmers.
“This group did a really great job and raising funds. They've worked with a few foundations in Colorado that have granted some support to build out this project. At the moment, we're kind of in a process of evaluating where we're at... We have a five year lease. We have some resources available to support the development process,” Marquez said.
Marquez said they are still looking for funding and residents who are interested in memberships.
Berenice Tenorio, a long-time Elyria Swansea resident, is looking forward to the new store, which will be located in between Viña Apartments and the Tepeyac Community Health Center.
“There is a library real close, an elementary school, and everything else is far away. You have to go into Commerce City to go to a grocery store,” Tenorio said. “I heard that they're supposed to be putting in a grocery store in the building. That would be so helpful. Grocery stores around here, you do have to travel. And there's a lot of people that don't have vehicles.”
The East Denver Food Sovereignty Initiative hopes to open the store by the end of the year.
For more information on the cooperative grocery story email: diversecityconsulting@gmail.com
