The Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing our Neighborhoods, or ACTION, a faith-based community organization in the Mahoning Valley, will greatly expand its presence in the near future. ACTION has focused much of its attention since 2017 on addressing food insecurity issues in Mahoning County, particularly in places considered food deserts such as Youngstown, Campbell and Sebring, said Rose Carter, its executive director.
ACTION started teaming up with Flying HIGH Inc. in 2017 to host pop-up markets in Youngstown, providing fresh fruit and vegetables from May to October. “We wanted to do more for people and that led to coming up with a grocery store on wheels,” Carter said. Raising more than $500,000 from various governments, nonprofit organizations and foundations, ACTION purchased a 28-foot mobile market vehicle in 2022, Carter said. The van made 436 stops last year serving more than 11,000 people all over Mahoning County. The van, which has refrigeration on one side of its interior, is filled with various meats, frozen vegetables, dairy products and beverages, as well as fresh fruits, vegetables and breads. Through several grants, people going to the mobile market van can get vouchers between $15 and $25, Carter said. Also, the mobile market takes cash, credit and debit cards, as well as vouchers from different organizations and from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “It’s not just low- to moderate-income people,” Carter said. “ACTION wants to make sure everyone in the area is not hurting and has access to healthy foods.”
ACTION took the mobile market van to Trumbull County twice last year. Thanks to a number of grants, including $200,000 each from Warren City Council and Trumbull County commissioners, ACTION purchased a 32-foot mobile market vehicle for Trumbull County that will provide the same services in that county starting in the summer, Carter said. “The mobile market is for everyone in the Mahoning Valley,” she said. “We’re expanding into Trumbull County because they face the same issues of food insecurity that people in Mahoning County have. We want to help the people with the same challenges and issues in Trumbull County. We’re excited to get a second mobile market van and be in Trumbull County.” Vera Little, coordinator of the mobile market program, said, “It helps the people a lot. We’re in a food desert and the program is such a success. We try to serve the whole community. The price of groceries is getting higher and we praise God we’re able to give back to the community. We go to schools and help our senior citizens who can’t make it to a grocery store.” “I love giving back to the community. So many organizations help us make this a success,” she said.
Flying HIGH Inc., a Youngstown-based nonprofit, has worked alongside ACTION going back to the pop-up markets. Jeffrey M. Magada, its executive director, said many of the fresh produce sold on the mobile market are grown at the organization’s urban farm on Youngstown’s North Side and the drivers of the vehicle are part of Flying HIGH’s workforce development program. The food is also stored at Flying HIGH’s location at the Campus of Care in Austintown. “ACTION raised the money and Flying HIGH does the operations,” he said. “It’s been a great partnership. It touches a lot of different purposes.” As part of ACTION’s focus on food insecurity, it is working to get a brick-and-mortar grocery store in Youngstown. It plans to open a community marketplace at the end of this year at the former Bottom Dollar grocery store site at 2469 Glenwood Ave. on the city’s South Side. The store closed in January 2015 after the company was sold to Aldi Inc., which then shuttered it and two others in Youngstown. Youngstown took back control of the site last year from ONE (Ohio North East) Health Ohio, which announced in 2016, it was going to turn the 18,000-square-foot building into a health facility. Because of the increased cost, ONE Health Ohio decided not to do the project.
OTHER GOALS While addressing food insecurity has been ACTION’s main goal for the past several years, the organization works to provide education opportunities, make neighborhoods safer and improve housing, Carter said. ACTION was instrumental in getting Eastern Gateway Community College to expand to downtown Youngstown. “We petitioned the governor with 5,000 signatures and worked with local leaders to get a community college,” Carter said. “That’s why we’re so upset with what is happening with Eastern Gateway.” With the college’s future in serious jeopardy, Carter said ACTION wants to try to save the college as well as help Youngstown State University as it accepts Eastern Gateway students. But Carter said ACTION is concerned about what will happen to inner-city students who won’t have access to higher education. In an effort to make neighborhoods safer, ACTION has “hot spot cards,” which allow people to provide information anonymously about concerns in their neighborhoods such as drug dealing and other crimes as well as quality of life issues such as high grass and houses in disrepair, Carter said. The cards are in local churches and libraries. “The cards get sent to us and we go to law enforcement and try to resolve the issues,” Carter said. “It was very popular for a number of years and then it kind of stopped. We started it up again two years ago and we received a lot of information.”
Improving the area’s housing is also a priority for ACTION, she said. “We work really hard with YNDC (Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.) to stop predatory lenders and to take down blighted houses,” Carter said.
To read the full story from The Tribune Chronicle, click here.
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