A grocery store in a food desert is destined to become a community focal point, something a Washington, D.C., Giant Food took to heart when it reopened its in-house community center recently.
Located on Alabama Avenue SE in Ward 8 of the city — a food desert in part because of its lack of supermarkets, according to the D.C. Policy Center — the Ahold Delhaize banner store reintroduced the Healthy Living Center during a grand reopening event on Dec. 10, 2024, which Grocery Dive attended.
This multi-purpose center, located to the left of the store’s front entrance, provides health and wellness information and programming to the greater D.C. area, said Leslie Jefferson, Giant’s community health programs manager.
The Healthy Living Center is also prepared to offer an array of programs, including financial literacy, yoga classes, nutrition education and board meetings for nonprofits, Jefferson said, noting that the space is free to use. Both Georgetown University and George Washington University are using the space to educate locals on preventative cancer measures and encourage them to get early screening tests, like mammograms and prostate exams.
Giant first opened the space to the community in 2017, but closed it at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and then repurposed it to administer COVID-19 vaccinations, according to Jefferson. During the last several months of 2024, Giant worked to revamp the space before opening it back up to the Ward 8 community, she said.
“Anybody who lives in Ward 8 knows that this is our only grocery store, and for a lot of people in this community, this is our only healthcare site,” U.S. Rep. Oye Owolewa, who is a Ward 8 resident and a pharmacist, said in remarks at the reopening event.
The art of healthy living
The grand reopening of the Healthy Living Center also included the unveiling of a mural created by a Washington, D.C., artist specifically for the space and the Ward 8 community.
The mural, by Emmy award-winning artist Doudgy Charmant, showcases Mother Nature, community and the beauty of healthy eating and living. The artwork stretches along one of the primary walls of the Healthy Living Center and is meant to reflect the Ward 8 community.
“Ward 8 is like the art center of D.C., so why not have a mural and why not have a mural that depicts what we do in this space and also what happens out in the community?” Jefferson said. “And [Charmant] has done a wonderful job bringing together all the pieces of health, wellness, community, fellowship and the beauty of D.C. itself all in one mural.”
Giant runs a Community Bag Program where $1 for every reusable bag sold gets donated to a local charity selected by each local store’s leadership team. To honor Charmant and his mural, the Ward 8 Giant store allowed him to choose the charity the donations went to for the month of December.
Giant announced at the reopening that Charmant and other D.C. local artists’ artwork will be printed on the reusable bags and donations will go to the National Cancer Center for Children and Families.
