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New Dollar General Market could help the food desert on Syracuse’s southside

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New Dollar General Market could help the food desert on Syracuse’s southside

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) - Syracuse's southside has faced a food desert for years, but it may have some temporary relief as a new market offering fresh produce has opened.

Dollar General announced on Tuesday, Feb. 13, that its new DG Market is now open at 2711 South Salina Street.

The affordable and convenient store location features an expanded selection of fresh meats, fruits and vegetables, and the same categories, brands and products customers know Dollar General will carry.

We are excited to provide Syracuse residents with our new DG Market format and look forward to welcoming customers to our new location. At Dollar General, we are committed to serving our customers with a pleasant shopping experience and strive to be a good corporate citizen. The new DG Market format aims to provide the Syracuse community with closer access to fresh and healthier foods and a convenient location to purchase the items they want and need at everyday low prices. We hope our customers will enjoy the new store.
Matthew Simonsen, Dollar General's senior vice president of real estate and store development

This new market opening comes at the right time as almost 50% of Onondaga County residents say fresh, healthy and affordable foods should be close to where you live, according to the most recent Community Health Survey Report.

The southside of Syracuse has been considered a food desert for several years because they haven't had access to fresh produce or a grocery store close by.

In 2022, neighbors in the community had been advocating for a grocery store to return to Valley Plaza on the southside, forming the group Food Access Healthy Neighborhoods Now (FAHNN). That same year, FAHNN was able to partner with Brady Farm to host a farm stand in the plaza.

Since then, there have been some community organizations willing to help, including Brady Market which donated household items to Syracuse families on the southside in December 2023 through its Brady Market's Kitchen Supply Initiative.

However, it's been years without a permanent grocery store and Syracuse's southside is hungry for food as many are low-income minority individuals who are more prone to be affected by food insecurity.

At DG Market, southside residents won't only get access to fresh produce but also household essentials including cleaning supplies, paper products, over-the-counter medicines, hygiene products, baby items and more.

In addition to the national and private branded products, the new Syracuse DG Market location includes on-trend home décor and an expanded party preparation selection.

The addition of the Syracuse store also opens the opportunity for schools, nonprofit organizations and libraries within a 15-mile radius of the store to apply for grants through the Dollar General Literacy Foundation.

"Since its inception in 1993, this foundation awarded more than $238 million in grants to nonprofit organizations, helping more than 19.6 million individuals with literacy or continued education," stated Dollar General.

With this new market, Dollar General plans to create new jobs in the Syracuse community as the store is expected to employ approximately 10-15 people, depending on its individual needs.

DG Market will "Provide employees with competitive wages, world-class and award-winning training and development programs and benefits including day-one telemedicine eligibility as well as health insurance coverage options, 401K savings and retirement plans, tuition reimbursement, paid parental leave and adoption assistance to eligible employees."

Another DG Market will be opening at the end of March in the Valley on West Seneca Turnpike and in addition, a new Dollar General store will also open up at the same time in the Valley.

Individuals interested in joining the DG team may review available positions and apply online.

Store hours of operation can be found through the Dollar General app.

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New Dollar General Market could help the food desert on Syracuse's southside

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) - Syracuse's southside has faced a food desert for years, but it may have some temporary relief as a new market offering fresh produce has opened. Dollar Genera...

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Food Bank of CNY is seeing pandemic level need amid growing rise in food insecurity

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Food Bank of CNY is seeing pandemic level need amid growing rise in food insecurity

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Millions of Americans are experiencing food insecurity by facing limited or uncertain access to sufficient food.

It's a growing issue even here in Central New York.

As mentioned on the Food Bank of Central New York's website, the face of hunger in our community has shifted from the idea that only the unhoused are out at soup kitchens and food pantries looking for a meal, to now working families and individuals who are just struggling to make ends meet.
MORE: Central NY food bank introduces discounted groceries online portal before Christmas
For Mike Naselli, it's no surprise to him that the Food Bank of CNY is feeding thousands more people than this time last year. He said he sees the need firsthand every weekend.

"There's a church, a great church that gives to people but there's a huge line," said Naselli. "You should see the line. I load up my trunk at this church and it's usually on next Saturday, I'm going to go to it."

As pandemic-era funding for social programs like SNAP came to an end, many people are getting fewer benefits as grocery prices continue to rise.
MORE: Local food banks prepare for increased demand as SNAP extra funding goes away
Officials with the Food Bank of CNY say they anticipated an increase in those in need of their services.

"Food Bank of Central New York and so many other organizations here are experiencing pandemic level need," said Lynn Hy, the chief development officer. "In our first five months of our fiscal year, we've distributed more than 9 million pounds of food. That represents more than 18% increase over the same time period in 2022."

In October of 2023, the food bank distributed 2.1 million pounds of food. The last time that much food was distributed was in October 2020. Although the count for distributions this past November has not yet been finalized, Hy said it is certainly more than 1.9 million pounds.

Of the 11 Central New York counties the Food Bank serves, 1 in 10 people face hunger, and 1 in 8 children face hunger.

Seniors are also a group struggling to have enough food.

"I used to be able to get food stamps but I work so much that I can't get food stamps," said Naselli. "I get bologna, cheese, inexpensive stuff. Bananas, anything that's inexpensive. That's what I got to do, that's my plan."

With so many other factors impacting families, like high costs of food, cost of child care, and housing costs, Hy says the food bank sees this high demand for food continuing for several more years.
RELATED: Food Bank of CNY unveils massive warehouse expansion amid growing need

"If we continue to get the level of support that we've seen from the community and from our food donors, we will be able to continue to meet the demand but it's dependent on getting that level of support and people continuing to believe in the work that we're doing and wanting to help their neighbors," Hy said.

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Food Bank of CNY is seeing pandemic level need amid growing rise in food insecurity

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Millions of Americans are experiencing food insecurity by facing limited or uncertain access to sufficient food.It's a growing issue even here in Central New Yo

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We deserve a food system that works for all people in Syracuse and Onondaga County

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We deserve a food system that works for all people in Syracuse and Onondaga County

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SOFSA | Syracuse-Onondaga Food Systems Alliance

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When we say 'food system,' what we're referring to is the network of interconnected processes - and the people behind these processes - that grow food and get it to your fork. The food system encompasses how and where food is produced, processed, distributed, and consumed, and how the waste is managed afterward. The food system is shaped by politics, economics, cultures, and the natural environment itself. The best food systems produce enough healthful food for all community members. Healthy food systems also create financial opportunities for businesses, offer gainful employment to individuals, and sustain the environment that we all share. A well-designed food system is the basis for a happy society.

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When we say 'food system,' what we're referring to is the network of interconnected processes - and the people behind these processes - that grow food and get it to your fork. The food system encompasses how and where food is produced, processed, distributed, and consumed, and how the waste is managed afterward.

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n the building at the corner of Gifford Street and South West Street known for nearly 100 years as NoJaim Brothers Supermarket, a banner hangs on the brown facade. It reads, "Coming soon, Brady Market, more than a market."

The new market, set to open in May, is seeking to help solve a pervasive issue in Syracuse: food apartheid.

"We've never been more disconnected from our food as a society than we are now," said Kevin Frank, executive director of the Brady Faith Center, who oversees the market's opening. "We live in these bubbles where some people know these things and others don't."

In Syracuse, half of the city's children live in poverty, nearly one-third of households have no vehicle available, and 31% of households rely on SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, according to a 2017 Onondaga Health County Department report on the city's food environment. But the issue is deeper. More systemic.

In a predominantly Black community of mixed low to middle-income households, with many single-parent families, the term "food apartheid" explains how a lack of access to healthy food disproportionally impacts Black communities, said Matthew Potteiger, professor of landscape architecture at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and affiliated faculty member within the Falk College Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at Syracuse University.

"Your zip code determines the hand you're dealt," Frank said.

Food apartheid names the race-based discriminatory practices, Potteiger said. Unlike the more common phrase, "food desert," which suggests that food insecurity is a natural occurrence, food apartheid is a human-created system where some have abundant resources and others do not. To find food in a desert, one just has to know the environment, Potteiger added.

"A food desert does not recognize the rain that falls or the range of resources that people have learned to develop in those areas," Potteiger said.

The 8,000 square foot Brady Market will holistically address the food access and food sovereignty needs of the community, Frank said. The market is in the Near West Side, within blocks of the Downtown and South Side neighborhoods.

Elisia Gonzalez knows the environment of the South Side food system. Gonzalez, a 2016 Syracuse University graduate, grew up "surrounded by poverty" on Brighton Avenue, a stone's throw away from Interstate 81. She recalls a lack of grocery stores in her childhood neighborhood.

Gonzalez said many of her neighbors did not have access to cars, and public transportation is "not the best" in Syracuse. A 2018 Syracuse Metropolitan Planning Area study found 21.4% of Centro riders to be low-income, and The Daily Orange reported that the pandemic has shown most Centro riders are transit-dependent. Gonzalez remembers seeing people walking on the busy South Salina Street, arms heavy with grocery bags.

Once, when shopping at a grocery store, security loomed over Gonzalez's every move, she said. This did not happen to customers in the wealthier Nottingham neighborhood stores, Gonzalez added.

"You don't see security outside of the front door in Nottingham," Gonzalez said. "But on the South Side, the security is always watching you. It's intimidating."

Communities are perceived as good or bad, Frank said. This perception homogenizes its residents.

There was a string of years where grocery stores would pop up, then close soon after, Gonzalez said. That's when a grassroots community effort, coordinated by Jubilee Homes, led to the opening of the full-service Price Rite on South Avenue.

The convenience stores around Gonzalez's neighborhood capitalize on poverty, said Jessi Lyons, farm coordinator at Brady Farms.

"[The stores are] intentionally marketing and marking up food knowing people are going to use their benefits on them," Lyons said. "They can capitalize on the fact that no one has an option."

A high-spirited employee of Brady Farms, a 5.8-acre farm on the South Side, seeks to remedy this. Keonna Yearwood, community outreach coordinator for the farm, works to normalize healthy eating habits among some South Siders that were not taught food education, she said.

"We fry things. Over-sautee things. We don't get nutrition from a lot of the foods that we eat," Yearwood said.

Yearwood drastically cut her weight once she learned how to cook her favorite soul food dishes in a healthier way. She vowed to educate others who, like her, were not taught.

"We like to talk about health care in this country, but we don't ever talk about food justice being a part of that," Yearwood said. "And these systems that create these food justice systems, a lot of the time, keep people out of them."

Yearwood also works as a personal chef where she conducts virtual classes. Her classes partner with the PGR Foundation, a Syracuse non-profit female youth mentoring program that stands for "Poised, Gifted and Ready." Founder Debra McClendon, 62, works with South Siders to introduce healthy eating habits.

While at a PGR event, McClendon saw three girls huddled in a corner with a bag of Burger King. The striped box of french fries passed from hand to hand, each girl eating one fry at a time. They shared the rest of the meal this way, meticulously dividing portions. It hit McClendon: these girls were hungry.

Many of the girls' parents or caretakers are single, work multiple jobs, and are eligible for food stamps, which leaves little time to prepare food between school and events, McClendon said. And when the girls can make food for themselves, it typically comes frozen and wrapped in plastic, lacking in nutrition.

McClendon heard praise of Yearwood's cooking classes reverberating through the South Side community and saw an opportunity to introduce the families of PGR to healthy eating. When working with families, Yearwood asks how they feel about their health, and if they're open to trying new things in the kitchen.

Families typically agree to a cooking lesson on one condition: if Yearwood can make the food taste good. Vegetables do not have the best reputation among South Siders, Yearwood said, so she incorporates a vegetable they're familiar with, like a sweet potato. Once they learn how to make a sweet potato pop with flavor, "a lightbulb goes off in their head," Yearwood said.

"They're like, 'Wow I didn't know this could taste like this,'" Yearwood said.

After a class, McClendon said "them jokers were happy," even inviting friends over to make a beet salad.

Generosity and communal thinking run through the South Side. As a measure, church-goers in the South Side area give higher amounts per percentage of income than church-goers outside the area, Frank said. While working at a food pantry on the South Side, Frank noticed that people look out for each other.

"If they got two pies, it wasn't to store them, it was for their neighbor," Frank said.

Deconstructing the Divide

The opening of Brady Market is a response to the food security and sovereignty needs of the South Side community, Frank said. Customers will walk into the store and find bargain produce items, a meat-stained, apron-clad butcher, a deli, hot to-go food, and a place to heal, Frank said. Employees will be paid to work on themselves - most hires will be people from the community. "Learning circles" will provide a space for employees to talk about substance abuse, anger management, meditation, and parenting, Frank said.

The community expressed their enthusiasm for the market as a sigh of relief after years of scrounging corner stores and a few grocery stores for food.

"There's an incredible resilience and tenacity to survive and overcome obstacles that are unbearable and overwhelming," Frank said.

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Food insecurity in Syracuse disproportionately affects marginalized communities, but residents are working to develop solutions ...

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What is food insecurity and what does it look like in central and northern New York?

The face of hunger has shifted from what once was the homeless man who used a soup kitchen to get by to working families and individuals who are struggling to make ends meet.

Food insecurity refers to the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) measure of lack of access to enough nutritionally adequate foods for an active, healthy lifestyle for all household members. Food insecurity is not exclusively a trait of the poverty stricken. Hunger and poverty often go hand in hand but poverty is not the ultimate determinant of food insecurity. Food insecurity may reflect a working households need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate foods. [i]

Food insecure people in Food Bank of Central New York's eleven county service area: 178,160

In the summer of 2017 Food Bank of Central New York conducted a follow-up study to understand who accessed emergency food agencies in our service area and why. The 348 interviews consisted of households, selected at random, who utilized one of the Food Bank's food pantries or soup kitchens.

We've developed the following results to bring awareness regarding who is hungry and the challenges they face. This enables us to collectively identify solutions to better address the growing problem of food insecurity as a community.

Among the thousands of people who depend on charitable food programs in central and northern New York:

Read the full report by requesting a copy of Food Bank of Central New York's 2017 Hunger Assessment
Feeding America: Facts About Hunger and Poverty in America Feeding America: Facts About Child Hunger

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The face of hunger has shifted from what once was the homeless man who used a soup kitchen to get by to working families and individuals who are struggling to make ends meet. Food insecurity refers to the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) measure of lack of access to enough nutritionally adequate foods for an active, healthy lifestyle for all household members.