Our series on hunger awareness concludes with a visit to a grocery store that's trying to address the food desert in Western Massachusetts largest city.
We first visited Agri Organics and Farm Store 99, in downtown Springfield about a year ago. Soon after it opened, it was a dream of Hamid Bello and his wife, Ayo, to expand access to nutrition in an area where little, if any, fresh produce could be found. In addition to fruits and vegetables, the store offers chef prepared meals as well as regular household items. NEPM's Kari Njiiri spoke with Bello recently at his store. In between cashing customers out, he asked Hamid how the first year of the business has been.
Hamid Bello: The year has been lovely. We've seen community buy-in and the community has welcomed us, and a lot of the residents are starting to get familiar. However, there's still a lot of work to do in terms of educating people that we're here and we're here to serve them. So, every day we see new individuals coming in to patronize us and to see what we're doing here at Farm Store 99.
Kari Njiiri, NEPM: When I spoke to you last, you mentioned Faith as being a driving force behind your decision to open this store here in downtown Springfield. Talk about that.
It was all about faith and service to society and our community. And so far, it's been a slow growing and and a test of faith for sure, and one where we had to be resilient. We still remain committed. We still remain faithful that the work that we are doing is making an impact. And people have actually vocalized to us the impact that we're making. And because of that, we're truly grateful.
What do they say?
They say, you know, they're happy that we're here. And, you know, a lot of things that they wouldn't get access to or be challenging for them to get access to, we have made it easier for them. And they also appreciate the times that we're open and the fact that we're even open on the weekends to accommodate their needs. And they also appreciate the fact that we bring in items that they actually request for and every item that they ask for. We try our best to to make sure it's specifically tailored to them. And we've started to collaborate with culturally appropriate local vendors based on customer requests and stuff like that. And that's been lovely also.
Who is your typical customer here?
I wouldn't say we have a typical customer. The lovely thing being downtown is we have a diverse range of customers, and we welcome all customers, and we try to serve all customers, regardless of whatever form of payment that they use. The large spectrum of our customers are on SNAP, HIP and, you know, other programs like that.
You say large, more than half?
You know, about 50 to 60% for sure. That's a big deal to us, to make sure that we continue to be able to serve them.
Given the government shutdown and the accompanying cuts to SNAP benefits. What's it been like for you as a business?
It's been challenging just because you know, a lot of customers do come in here to patronize us. And like I said, they're on SNAP and HIP And the fact that they didn't have that was challenging to them. So, we tried our best to educate them... ahead of the proposed shuts down. And a lot of them were really appreciative of that.
Every day we try to educate people on HIP and you'll be surprised the magnitude of people that come in just asking us, do I even have it? Do I qualify for it? Can you check my balance? How much do I have? And the team and I appreciate that work. And we certainly don't mind doing it every day and stuff like that. We try our best to not let the impact of SNAP affect how we serve our customers, but we do as a business feel the impact. Those sales were really important and not having them, was very, very damaging to the business. But we're hoping to bounce back and carry on strong.
Have you talked to other similar stores in terms of how to survive this?
We've spoken to a few and everyone's issues are different. There's certainly shared similarities that we bounce ideas back and forth, and everyone is just like one day at a time mentality is sort of what the common consensus is in terms of like, do what you can.
Because even for us, when when the SNAP stuff hit, you know, we're still giving out free food to customers because they're like, 'I was depending on my SNAP and I can't eat.' And they'r our regular customers, so we're not going to deny them food. So we gave it to them. We'd rather do that than see someone not do okay. You know, because some of them are in wheelchairs. And my wife and I and our team sort of take the loss on the head and just smile through it all. But, you know, that's what community service is all about.
Hamid Bello is co-owner of Agri Organics and Farm Store 99, in downtown Springfield.
