San Francisco Youth Push For Healthier Neighborhood Stores

In the absence of a full-service grocery store, Tenderloin residents seek to transform their corner stores into healthy stores.

Radman’s Produce Market in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, Dec. 3, 2012. The store on Turk and Jones Street has been carrying a selection of fresh produce for 14 years. Store owner Fadhl Radman says if residents start buying their groceries within the neighborhood and consume more of the produce he carries, he would be able to offer a wider selection. Catherine Yang/The Epoch Times

Youth from Sxfan Francisco’s Tenderloin District are working to turn their local corner stores into “good apples,” by encouraging store owners to carry fresh produce and healthier food options. Team LST (Let’s Stop Tobacco), is a group made up of high school and college students in the neighborhood.

Some of the team members, like Elle Nguyen, surveyed 46 corner stores in the area, checking for standards like fresh produce, litter receptacles, tobacco permits, advertising requirements, and no-smoking signs, which are required by law. They then compiled an “Apple Map” rating the stores good apples, half apples, or rotten apples.

“A lot of these corner stores aren’t meeting certain qualifications, which made them ‘rotten’ on our map,” said Nguyen, 16. “I walk home here every day, I live right down the street [from Turk and Jones Street] … and youth like me are influenced.”

“When we first started, 85 percent of corner stores in the Tenderloin did not have their ‘no smoking’ signs,” Nguyen said. “[We] wrote letters to the Department of Public Health, and in return they gave us no smoking signs to give out to corner stores that didn’t have them before.” Now, only three percent of the stores are without ‘no smoking’ signage. 

The group is now involved in an effort with the newly formed Tenderloin Healthy Corner Store Coalition in an ongoing effort to better the community. On Monday the groups announced that they were awarded $25,000 by Dignity Health to pilot a healthy retail program. The award came after two years of researching and surveying corner stores and residents. 

The funds will go toward sponsoring a corner store—typically merchants of mainly tobacco and alcohol—and transforming it into a healthy corner market carrying affordable, wholesome options.

“I’ve been a resident of the TL for seven years,” said Sheila Wheeler. “I spend about $300 a month outside of the TL on groceries, and I want to put that money back into the community I live in. If we show this is what our community wants, we can make it happen.”