Muhammad, retail program consultant for the Healthy Corners program, and her colleagues will make deliveries to neighborhoods with limited access to fresh vegetables, fruits and dairy products. Their first stop this week was a delivery to Neighborhood Market, a mid-size convenience store on Rhode Island Avenue.
“They have elders in the community, and mothers. They can’t get to the store, so we make sure their corner store has at least a few items they can make a meal with,” Muhammad said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated the area near the market a food desert: a low-income community at least one mile away from a large grocery store.
Michele Ver Ploeg, an economist at the USDA, developed a national food desert map using census data and grocery store locations. The District has seven food deserts, in Wards 5, 7 and 8.
Neighborhoods that are low-income with limited access to fresh
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