September 2026: Good Things Take Time

At The Community Grocer, we have been building a solution for the last five years to ensure that fresh food is not just a luxury, but a part of everyday life for our community. We have adapted, shared, changed, and grown it ever since.

We are in love with the problem: ensuring every community affected by food apartheid has access to the ingredients they need to live stronger, healthier lives.

Our solution: an ever-evolving reimagination of the corner store that integrates nutrition access, workforce development, local agriculture, community care, and health systems to make eating well easier for all.

Read on to join our journey and support a vision for a stronger, healthier tomorrow.

August 2026 SNAPSHOTS

📍 Abbvie Foundation Health Equity Accelerator

📍 Research + Development with Chef Samir

📍 Construction Updates

📍 Support Our Work: We Need Your Help

📍 At the Table: A Conversation About Food Access in Philadelphia

📍 Gratitude Corner

We’re proud to have participated in the 2026 AbbVie Foundation Health Equity Accelerator in partnership with MATTER ®.

Over 10 weeks, we refined our program, strengthened our plans for scale and connected with nonprofit peers working to expand access to care in communities throughout the United States and its territories. It was so inspiring to come back together with our fellow cohort members for the final showcase to share our progress and forge new connections to carry this work forward.

We’re grateful to the AbbVie Foundation and MATTER for their support and for empowering all of us to advance our critical work to reach more communities.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/4qBmCb0

Continued Product Research + Development:

As we approach our opening, our Chef de Cuisine Samir Hernandez has been working with our pre-apprentices to refine and finalize our opening day product offering. Every day he is in the kitchen building out our medically supportive, farm fresh ingredient kits to meet the needs & wants of our neighbors.

Want to try some of the food we are cooking up?

Join us at Denise’s Pantry on 59th & Catharine every Friday at 3:00pm for free product samples!

Construction Updates - In Mid July, a series of microstorms hit West Philadelphia; damaging power lines, causing floods, and knocking down trees. Our construction site was hit hard by the extreme weather conditions with water and wind damage requiring remediation, a full roof replacement, new security gates, and the repairing of our epoxy in our basement and kitchen.

We’ve since fixed the damage and are once again on a path forward, but are seeking your support to help us get to the finish line for our Fall 2026 Opening!

Support Our Work: We Cannot Do This Without You

From advocacy to meals, from construction, to our workforce program and beyond; this vision is one that can ensure every community has access to the ingredients they need to live stronger, healthier lives, but we need you to make it possible.

Every dollar you contribute supports nutrition access, job training, community health resources, and a vision for a food-secure Philadelphia. We cannot do this work without the generosity of supporters like you.

Donate today and be part of building something extraordinary.

SAVE YOUR SEAT: In partnership with The Philadelphia Inquirer, we’re bringing together community leaders for an in-depth panel discussion, At the Table: A Conversation About Food Access in Philadelphia.

Moderated by Kate Dailey, The Inquirer’s managing editor of Features, the panel will explore potential solutions to food insecurity and the challenges ahead.

Thomas Jefferson University
Hamilton Building Lobby

1001 Locust Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Thursday, September 17th

5:30pm

RSVP below! See you there :)

Gratitude Corner

• Thank you to our partners at Amerihealth Caritas for inviting us to the Eagles training camp as one of their grantee partners! Go Birds!

• A shout-out to all of our AbbVie accelerator cohort members who are working towards health equity across the United States.

• Gratitude to Angela Duckworth & Marcos Lopez for continuing to be a major part of our community <3

• The Food Trust food bucks team for coming out to 60th Street to kickoff an incredible support for our neighbors (more details coming soon!)

• All of you for your continued support!

Let’s build a vision together for a stronger, healthier tomorrow.

With grit and gratitude,

Alex, Angie, Eli, Issa, Joy, Samir, Sophie, & more coming soon!

The Community Grocer Family