By Katie Galloway
Murphy News Service
From a church basement to a street front shop, local nonprofit grocer Minneapolis Market is making a move.
The new location on Lake Street will be called Good Grocer and is only a few short blocks away from Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church where the food pantry originated. Even with the short distance between locations, employees said they think having a street front location will have a big impact on the organization.
“I expect the amount of foot traffic we see to increase,” said employee Carly Spanjers. “We have awesome customers but I think there are a lot of potential customers out there who would love what we do and just don’t know that we’re here doing it.”
Kurt Vickman, who was the lead pastor and founder at Upper Room Church in St. Louis Park, created the nonprofit about six years ago.
The Minneapolis Market was very different from your typical food shelf when it started out. While most food shelves simply hand people a bag of food, the Market was set up like a grocery store, complete with a greeter, carts, a large food selection, and a cashier. Each member or family was given points to shop with and pick out their food.
“There is very little choice, and very little dignity involved in most food pantries. The goal of the market was to present ‘food with dignity,’” Spanjers said.
Last February, the market changed its model and is now a member based grocery store. Now, instead of it being a place where only people who need help paying for food can shop, it is a place where anybody can shop.
There are two types of memberships, a “give-a-lot” membership and a “save-a-lot” membership. A “give-a-lot” membership is for people who don’t need help paying for food. They pay higher prices and don’t receive reward points. This helps to subsidize the lower prices that the “save-a-lot” members receive.
The “save-a-lot” membership is for people who do need help paying for food. They are guaranteed that the prices at the market will be lower than Cub, Aldi and Walmart.
To participate in either membership members must volunteer at the market once every four weeks for about three hours.
Spanjers said that plans for the new Good Grocer are “still in the works” but the store will most likely be keeping the membership model they’ve been working with.
Spanjers has been at the Minneapolis Market since February of 2013, first as a volunteer, and now as an employee.
“I love working and being involved at the Minneapolis market because it is an amazing community of people with diverse experiences,” Spanjers said. “It is a very authentic community, and has given me many relationships I am eternally grateful for. I have been able to know many of the families for almost two years now, and it has been a joy and privilege to see their children grow and their lives change.”
Katie Galloway is studying Journalism at the University of Minnesota.