Meet The Community Grocer, a scalable non-profit community market, resource, and education center advancing food justice and health equity through EBT accessible meal solutions.
The Community Grocer (TCG) was co-founded by Eli Moraru CAS ’21 and Alexandre Imbot CAS ‘20. Eli graduated from Penn with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Survey Research and Data Analytics, and Alex graduated with a degree in Environmental Management and Sustainability.
Joining TCG’s team this summer as their Community Relations Coordinator and Summer of Impact: Intern is Melissa Nong, CAS’24. Melissa is a rising senior majoring in Health & Societies with a concentration in Global Health.
During their undergraduate years, Eli and Alex explored the environmental justice issues in South Philly’s Grays Ferry, the world’s oldest crude oil refinery and one of Philadelphia's largest housing projects. During the COVID pandemic, their involvement in working with the community and distributing USDA food boxes led them to realize the limitations of the current food system, especially for those relying on government assistance programs like SNAP benefits.
Utilizing partnerships with local nonprofits, TCG hopes to “reinvent the corner store by bringing real food within walking distance.” They want to create a physical space for communities to leverage their purchasing power to access desired nutritional assistance. Beyond a marketplace, TCG will serve as a resource center with space for community programming and support.
Can you tell us a little more about how TCG was founded and its mission and values?
Eli: It was through working with our neighbors and talking with community members about their relationship with our food systems, especially during the pandemic where there was an influx of EBT or SNAP benefits. Talking with our neighbors, we found that there was an inaccessibility of places to use their EBT for a healthy meal that is culturally relevant, affordable, fresh, and what they really wanted. We began diving into the Farm Bill, where we began to see the limitations of SNAP benefits, EBT, and all the negative externalities that come out of it.
That led us to The Community Grocer, which is a reinvention and reinterpretation of the corner store. It allows our customers to use their EBT, cash or credit, for a fresh, culturally relevant EBT-accessible meal solution. It is a community driven process–we are not only providing access to fresh food, but access to resources, partnerships with other organizations, and education to really bring community back around the ritual of food.
How has TCG evolved over the past few years? What are some significant milestones or achievements?
Eli: A month ago, we purchased our first property at 627 South 60th Street in West Philadelphia
Alex: Winning the President's Prize last year was huge. That gave us not only the startup capital, but also the legitimacy effectively necessary to go continue the conversation at higher levels. Because as much as this conversation is ground level and block by block chatting with our neighbors, addressing food security and the policies driving these systems is very much a national and a federal conversation
Back in September, we also participated in the White House's Hunger, Nutrition, and Health conference, which was the first in 50 years that Biden hosted.
Eli: In January of 2023, we also won the silver medal for the Greater Philadelphia Social Innovation Awards. We’re slowly and strongly entering the debate, not only on the grassroots level, but on the national level of food justice and the policies and procedures in the relationship between private enterprises and nonprofits, to create the systematic change in our food system that our neighbors on the ground level want to see.
It was through working with our neighbors and talking with community members about their relationship with our food systems, especially during the pandemic where there was an influx of EBT or SNAP benefits. Talking with our neighbors, we found that there was an inaccessibility of places to use their EBT for a healthy meal that is culturally relevant, affordable, fresh, and what they really wanted. We began diving into the Farm Bill, where we began to see the limitations of SNAP benefits, EBT, and all the negative externalities that come out of it.
That’s really how TCG has been evolving. We went from on the ground conversations to the national conversation while still prioritizing our communities’ and our neighbors' voices, and that evolution is occurring every day. With our building, we're actually going to have our first product line in a few months. It’s been a long journey we’ve been on that's been changing every day.
How has Venture Lab been a support for TCG?
Eli: To be able to have this space in Tangen Hall has been critical to the growth of TCG thus far. We have maintained interns every semester since our inception, and Tangen Hall has been the home base for the company. This space gives us the resources and also the legitimacy of an office. Beyond that, it’s been amazing having startups from all across different industries that you get to bounce ideas off of.
Melissa, why did you decide to join TCG to work as a Summer of Impact: Intern? Could you speak a little bit more about your experience so far working as an intern this summer?
Melissa: I actually learned about TCG a year ago through a Penn Today article. I've been involved in the environmental justice, food justice, and food sovereignty space for a while, but not in the local sphere. TCG was my opportunity to learn about how I can make that kind of impact for the local Philadelphia community.
For my internship as a Community Relations Coordinator, I was really interested in working on the community level and gaining more hands-on experience. I wanted to be at the forefront of making connections between the startup and the community because we're community led. That's been a very important pillar for me to continue to build for TCG. I’ve loved reaching out to new partners and introducing TCG to them so that we can raise awareness about what we're doing. When we actually become a physical store, I want people to know that we're there so that they can access and make use of the space however they want.
That's also been a learning component for us. We're building this with the community, for the community. My job is to learn what people actually want our community space and our future kitchen to be like, what their experiences are, and what they want their experiences to be. So I've just been talking to people and listening to them, seeing where we can make partnerships and move forward.
A big part of it is considering how we can best uphold the values of empathy, generosity and reciprocity in our work. When we engage with people, we need to consider, “How can we best serve them? How can we help them as we also receive help from them?” That mutual exchange is how TCG has been moving forward.
I could have never done any sort of nonprofit or volunteering position like I am currently doing if there wasn't funding behind it. I've always kind of wanted to pursue this type of role for a summer, and it’s made me think about how I choose to present myself going forward and what kinds of career opportunities I take. I want to be very intentional about what kind of job I choose and to do something that benefits people. This funding has been life changing for me to be able to pursue TGC as an internship for a full summer.
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