Lower Price Hill COVID-19 Community Response: Collective Good[s]

Here's how we are working to battle COVID-19:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Oyler School/Community Learning Center Institute, State Avenue United Methodist Church and Community Matters have set up systems that are safely distributing meals and pantry essentials to our LPH neighbors. Your donation will allow us to provide items that wrap around and compliment these partners' offerings: cleansers, soap, paper towels, and bath tissue so families are able to maintain safe, clean homes. These pantries are estimated to meet the needs of approximately 150 families in Lower Price Hill.

Our next steps will engage community partners in our mission to defeat COVID and restore our community to health.

SANITATION DONATIONS

We need your help to continue making weekly donations of cleaning products for ~150 families reached by local partners. But that's not the end of our work. Here's what's next:

COLLECTIVE GOOD(S) 

The closest grocery store to Lower Price Hill requires a 2 mile round trip, and can turn into a 4 hour ordeal for the many families in the neighborhood who rely on bus services. Often by the time they reach the grocery, they find that essential goods are sold out due to these uncertain times. In the next 1-2 weeks, Meiser's Fresh Grocery will pilot a collaborative retail project with The LPH Arts Collective to offer household items and cleansers, as well as products made and curated by local art-repreneurs to raise neighborhood spirits. Certain items from the collection will be offered on a pay-what-you-can sliding scale. This innovative community retail concept, called Collective Good(s), will offer digital ordering and in-person ordering from a posted item menu, with curbside pickup--similar to carryout restaurants in order to ensure safety during the pandemic. Curbside pick-up will be located outside of the grocery and arts collective's interconnected space on State Avenue in the heart of Lower Price Hill.

LPH FARMERS MARKET

Based on lessons and successes from the Collective Good(s) retail concept, we will launch a weekly LPH Farmers Market connecting neighbors directly to access nutritious options from local farms and hyper-local food vendors. The market will partner with Produce Perks to be able to honor double-value coupons, SNAP purchases, produce prescriptions, senior and family vouchers.

MEISER'S FRESH GROCERY & DELI

Pending completion of our current renovations and health inspections, the nonprofit Meiser's Fresh Grocery and Deli will launch--eliminating the food desert in Lower Price Hill through neighborhood leadership, offering hyper-local career opportunities in the grocery and deli, as well as cooking workshops, youth programs, and incubation of local food entrepreneurs who will be invited to sell their goods through the store.

This unique model will be open to customers from across the city to experience the culture and specialties of Lower Price Hill, but it will also offer discounts and specials for members of the LPH community to make healthy carryout, produce, whole foods, and fresh proteins affordable and accessible for all.

BACKGROUND

Your Store of the Queen City is a nonprofit that partners with grassroots community-organizers to facilitate the neighbor-led, asset-based design, launch, and operation of sustainable social enterprises that foster trustworthy, hyper-local, human-centered economic development for the long-term wellbeing of residents. Its first initiative is helping grow Meiser's Fresh Grocery & Deli in the Cincinnati, Ohio Neighborhood of Lower Price Hill.

Here's the history of Meiser's, as told by members of the Lower Price Hill Community: When family-run Meiser's Parkview Market closed its doors after 60 years, the neighborhood also became a food desert. We lost the ability to nourish our loved ones with the fresh family recipes we've known best for generations. Instead, our nutrient-rich foods were replaced with convenience store offerings. And we've started to notice real effects on our wellbeing.

So we started to talk with each other. We made a survey. We went door-to-door discussing what we missed most with friends and neighbors. Then we shared the results. After self-advocating for many years, we finally were able to put together a business plan with non-profit partners to facilitate a new imagining of a local grocery: one that is community-determined and can't be taken away. We are partnering closely with Price Hill Will to make that grocery space a reality. Our friends and family will work there. They will make sure we have fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy, meats, and pantry staples. Our neighborhood bakers and chefs will sell prepared foods there. And we're naming our new grocery after the family that inspired us...With your support (any donation amount helps!), we will open the new Meiser's Fresh Grocery & Deli in 2020.

WHY WE'RE DOING IT

Nutritional Access & Life Expectancy: Many of our neighbors do not have cars, and grocery delivery services do not accept our food stamps. As a result, we are forced to rely on overpriced convenience foods that impact our longevity. We deserve healthy, fresh food options.

Economy: When the store closed we lost neighborhood jobs like clerking, food preparation, cleaning, maintenance, and more. We deserve the ability to build our neighborhood economy in a way that creates jobs and food entrepreneurship.

Community: Everybody eats. Without a grocery, there is no place in our neighborhood where EVERYONE runs into each other and shares the latest news and information about resources and invitation to neighborhood events. As one of our friends put it, "I live alone. I used to go to Meiser's every day because the clerks there would ask me how I was doing. Now nobody does anywhere." We deserve a space to connect.

The potential impact behind this project's success extends beyond our neighborhood. Make a gift today, and be a part of the food revolution.