The Healthy Neighborhood Store Alliance

The Healthy Neighborhood Stores Alliance
(HNSA) supports an evolutionary movement in West Oakland to create a food secure community. Mandela Marketplace’s focus is on increasing retail access points for affordable fresh, healthy foods with complement efforts to improve the store environment, its relationship in the community, and to provide nutrition education.

Mandela's West Oakland Youth Standing Empowered (WYSE) team manages and conducts all aspects of the HNSA project -- including building alliances with store owners, managing inventory, invoicing, deliveries, and engaging community members.

Customers regularly approach the WYSE team during deliveries or outreach events and say how much they appreciate having the option to conveniently purchase fruits and vegetables in their neighborhood.

Why is HNSA Important?
Our community faces serious health issues due to a lack of healthy food choices and nutrition education. The residents of West Oakland face a diabetes rate that is three times higher than the rest of Alameda County. HNSA provides fresh and affordable fruits and vegetables to West Oakland neighborhood corner stores so that families that have no way to get to a grocery store can still prepare a healthy meal. Because much of the produce is organic or pesticide free, it benefits the body more than conventional foods.

A big thank you to Ashoka Youth Ventures, who gave WYSE the means to purchase bicycles and trailers as green transportation to deliver produce to West Oakland corner stores.

Where does our Food Come From?
Our produce comes from Earth's Produce Distribution, a Mandela Marketplace Food Enterprise, that supports under-resourced, sustainable farmers within a 150 mile radius of Oakland.

• Bottles Liquor, 12th & Market Street
• Millennium Market, 18th & Market Street
• N&A Market, 32nd & Adeline Street
• *NEW!: Sav-Mor, 14th & Peralta Street
  
• Mandela Foods Cooperative, 1430 7th Street
  -- though Mandela Foods does not receive direct deliveries from our HNSA team, they do host HNSA nutrition education events and are a strong supporter of making fresh, healthy produce available in neighborhood corner stores!