Community Stories
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Passaic, New Jersey, is a city of about 70,000, located 15 minutes from New York City. The city participated in aLocal Foods, Local Places workshop in 2016 that helped bring together local business owners, residents, and community stakeholders to plan how to leverage a cultural commercial corridor to attract visitors, better serve local customers, and support neighborhood revitalization. This case study describes the experience of the local community and lessons learned.
- Background
- Planning and Assistance
- Successes and Opportunities
- Lessons Learned
Background
Originally a community of southern and eastern European immigrants, Passaic's Hispanic population had grown to more than two-thirds of the population. One of the city’s core assets was the concentration of food establishments, including restaurants, bodegas and bakeries, along the Market Street commercial corridor, which were representative of the city’s ethnic heritage.
This neighborhood was designated by the city as a redevelopment area in 2004, and after nearly a decade of little activity, developers began to show interest in repurposing some of the area’s older, industrial properties. While encouraging redevelopment, the city wanted to make sure the lower-income residents of the area can benefit from this revitalization.
Planning and Assistance
In 2016, the New Jersey Healthy Communities Network gave a grant to SMILE for Charity, a nonprofit organization in Passaic, along with Rutgers University Cooperative Extension and the New Jersey Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, to implement the New Jersey Healthy Corner Store Initiative in six corner stores in the Market Street corridor. As the New Jersey Health Communities Network grant money arrived at the time of the Local Foods, Local Places workshop, stakeholders were able to use the opportunity to discuss implementation ideas and encourage participation in the initiative among Market Street businesses.
The initiative started by offering small business training to corner store owners, including information about pricing and the benefits of using local distributors instead of third-party sellers. The initiative gave the stores blenders and recipes for smoothies—a value-added product that increased store profits, reduced spoilage of fresh produce, and created a healthy offering for customers. Each store had an individualized plan that included changes in inventory to offer healthy options that appealed to the store’s customer base and changes to the store layout to make healthy food offerings more prominent.
Successes and Opportunities
After engaging in the LFLP process, the community experienced an early success. The first “Taste of Market Street” event was held in 2017, and it helped build community, share plans for neighborhood improvements, and highlight the neighborhood’s cultures and cuisines.
The city’s Urban Enterprise Zone program and Valley National Bank helped pay for the transformation of street parking into several parklets with al fresco dining. The day included music, dancing, and informational displays on health and environmental initiatives that community partners were undertaking in Passaic. The event not only supported the local businesses; it also helped reinforce the community’s desire to clean up brownfields and empty lots in the neighborhood for parks, playgrounds, and walking paths to provide more opportunities for such outdoor activities.
Beyond the event, the city recognized that giving residents more options for healthy, fresh food was vital to improving their health. With one of the lowest car-ownership rates in the state, residents relied predominantly on local bodegas for their food. The city initiated nutrition training that helped store owners understand the health benefits for the entire community and serve as peer educators for customers. Store owners also came up with their own ideas. For example, they started offering cups of fresh fruits and vegetables with chili powder and lemon (a common snack in Mexico). Stores quickly started selling out, with students stopping by after school, replacing their normal snack of chips with this healthier alternative.
Another benefit of these efforts was that the corner store owners on Market Street began speaking to one another about their businesses and supporting each other in different ways. For example, the owners created a buying club so larger distributors made deliveries to the entire corridor, which they previously would not have done for individual stores. With coordination and support, the Market Street corridor was on the path to become both a destination for authentic cultural cuisine and a vibrant, local-serving corridor that gives residents fresh, healthy food options.
Lessons Learned
- A concentration of similar businesses can help create an identity for an area that will attract visitors from outside the neighborhood.
- Events can help generate enthusiasm among residents and demonstrate to business owners that coordination and cooperation will yield dividends that make the effort worthwhile.
- Residents will buy healthy food if it is appealing and convenient to purchase and consume, and they will participate in healthy outdoor activities if given the space and opportunity to do so.
Published: May 2018
Source: Personal Communication with Sara Elnakib, Family and Community Health Sciences Educator, Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Passaic County on November 2, 2017, and Joe Buga, Project Manager, Passaic Enterprise Zone Development Corporation on December 4, 2017.
