Story

The Lovejoy Village Association is a new non profit 501 c 3 located in the Lovejoy neighborhood. When I was 20 years old I purchased a old storefront on Lovejoy which was formally a railroad clothing store called Techmeyers. Today the storefront is the home of the Lovejoy Village Association’s offices. Over the past 5 years a new vision for Lovejoy, developed by its residents, started to come together by community leaders, and finally a new non profit was formed. Focusing on the tremendous potential for reinvestment and development within Lovejoy, and a common goal to create a family friendly neighborhood, LVA’s directors have directed their efforts to the business district. We are hyper focused on filling empty storefronts with new niche businesses, creating a walkable neighborhood where the residents have access to goods and services locally. Over the past few years, seven new women owned businesses opened up in once empty storefronts. These new businesses have been a awesome addition to our neighborhood and they are all thriving.For a few years now, directors of the Lovejoy Village Association has wrestled with the question of how, exactly, to open a community-focused, locally-owned, non-profit grocery store in our neighborhood which has been overlooked by traditional supermarkets. Which brings me to the “Lovejoy Village Market”. Recognizing that East Lovejoy is now considered a food dessert due to the Broadway Tops closing, we began to bounce ideas around on how we can help bring healthy food to our neighborhood. The concept of a nonprofit grocery store came up in our research. The lack of access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet contributes to issues of hunger, disease, obesity and even childhood development issues. After reading about other nonprofit grocery success stories and how others did it, we knew with the combined resources, contacts and volunteers, that this idea can actually be a reality. We all reached out to our contacts and have been able to secure a location and form relationships with a  wholesale food distributors. The Lovejoy Village Market will provide fresh, healthy, affordable food to our community and because grocery stores play a crucial role in community development  beyond access to food, the market will also serve as a meeting place, source of informal credit, and will support workforce development. Also, the fact that the market will be a non profit, all proceeds will go back into the neighborhood to continue to attract business development in our blighted business district. We also hope to attract local artisans and sell their products to help our home based businesses grow and hopefully help them one day move into their own storefront on Lovejoy St.Although the Market will be tremendous asset for the community, LVA hopes that the Market will be able to provide our association with a revenue source so we can continue to expand on our mission and goals and help make Lovejoy a desirable city neighborhood to live, work, shop and have fun. We hope to open our doors by the end of August. This fundraiser will help us buy a used deli case, open air merchandiser, 3 door refrigerated display cooler and a commercial meat slicer.  Thank you again for your consideration in donating to this worthy cause!