Oaks of Righteousness to open Village Market next month
![The Oaks of Righteousness will soon open a new grocery store called The Village Market on E. Fourth St. in the City of Monroe. [MONROE NEWS PHOTO BY TOM HAWLEY]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/02/11/NMNN/6c5ef956-4cbb-45bb-97d3-299bd011072b-mimon-021221-Village-Market.jpg?width=660&height=369&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
For the first time in a long time, the City of Monroe’s Orchard East neighborhood will have its own grocery store.
The Oaks of Righteousness recently purchased, and is currently in the process of transforming, the defunct Pop Stop Party Store at 1104 E. Fourth Street into the Village Market, which will be a grocery store that also offers educational services designed to encourage healthy dietary habits. The store is expected to open March 1.
The market project is the brainchild of Oaks Pastor Heather Boone, who told the Monroe News in November that she hoped to open both an ice cream parlor and grocery store on the east side of Monroe within the next couple of years.
Boone’s initial plan was to first open the ice cream parlor, dubbed the Oaks Creamery, with a grocery store hopefully coming within a couple of years. But plans changed when the pastor learned that the Pop Stop building was potentially for sale.
Oaks initially had planned to build its grocery store in a different building they owned, but Boone says she realized the Pop Stop was a much more viable option.
“(The previous owner) had started working on it already,” Boone explained. “The other building had been closed down 20-30 years, but this one had only been closed down for five years, (and) he had already started doing a lot of repairs to it and a lot of the work to get it reopened himself. He had done a lot of the leg work already.”It was nothing but God.”
The Orchard East neighborhood and surrounding area are often referred to as a “food desert” due to there being no grocery stores offering fresh items such as dairy, meat and produce within walking distance.
Many residents of the neighborhood are at or below the poverty line, and they rely on federal programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP) for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and public transportation when they need to visit a store to shop for food and other essentials, Boone explained.
But only certain stores accept those programs, leaving many residents with a long bus ride whenever they have to restock their kitchens.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic only added to an already difficult situation, as Lake Erie Transit (LET) has drastically limited the number of riders per bus, and the number of bags each rider can carry with them in an effort to maintain recommended social distancing guidelines.
“Right now they’re only allowing 10 people at a time, and two bags (per person),” Boone said. “Think about the weather right now; Who can walk to the grocery store? If you don’t have a vehicle, how can you get food right now?
“We’ve just been seeing so many people coming to us telling us they didn’t have food.”
Oaks already offers a variety of health services through a free clinic overseen by Dr. Susan Hulsemann of ProMedica, which has been a major guiding force as Oaks looks to open the Village Market.
ProMedica Grocery Development Consultant Anthony J. Goodwin, who has overseen similar projects such as the ProMedica Ebeid Institute in Downtown Toledo, has been working with Boone to turn her vision of the market into reality.
The idea is not only to offer customers fresh, healthy food items, but also to teach them how to prepare them to counteract some of the common health issues Oaks sees in patients of its free clinic.
“The No. 1 issue with our people who come in is food related,” Boone said. “Because they’re eating so unhealthy, many of their conditions are tied to what they eat, like hypertension, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, things of that nature.”
Hulsemann said she and her team will have a presence in the market, offering healthy recipe cards, blood pressure checks and other guidance to those looking to shop healthier.
“If we can speak to them about how to read food labels for sodium, fat, sugars, things like that, maybe we can start making an impact on their health choices and behaviors before we get into where they need medicine,” Hulsemann said.
“I say it’s going to be a grocery store plus, and the plus is family medicine residence, or the graduate medical education in ProMedica coming alongside of (Pastor Boone) to try to provide impactful education.”
But for those times when a sweet treat is desired, the Village Market will incorporate Boone’s initial concept for the Oaks Creamery by offering an ice cream bar.
Just as what would have happened with the Creamery, the counter will be staffed by local teenagers as part of Oaks’ job training program.
As for the rest of the market, Boone says it will be staffed by a combination of volunteers and residents of the neighborhood.
“The goal is to hire from within the community,” she said. “It’s going to be wonderful…
“We also plan on partnering with Monroe County Community College, they want to grow some plants and want to provide some produce for us. We’ll be partnering with some local farmers so we can have a lot of Michigan produce in there.
“We are excited, and we just see this as a win. It will be a small market, but a big thing for our community.”
