ACTS-CNY

The ACTS Southside Food Access Action Team has been recently constructed from members of ACTS member congregations, the Southside Food Cooperative, local advocates and individual business owners-who understand the health and community development hazards of not having full-service accessibility to fresh, nutritious, and affordable food in the Southside of Syracuse.  As this Action Team has worked toward researching and assessing the needs and requisites to re-establish a fresh food retailer within the community, the alarming alternatives of corner stores as primary food markets has yielded inhumane discoveries.

There is a unique health crisis in the Southside.  High infant mortality, type one and type two diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and critical premature health deficiencies are complicated and amplified by not having access to fresh, nutritious and affordable food.

Corner stores are not a fresh food alternative.  Food is being sold at the corner stores in the Southside of Syracuse months to years after its expiration date.  On September 21, 2009, ACTS members investigated these unsafe practices by purchasing outdated products such as an instant Taco Bell box that expired on December 6, 2008.  We want-no, we DESERVE-local legislation that will make it a City Codes violation, punishable by a citation and a fine, for a grocery establishment to offer food products for sale after they have expired.

These corner stores are not equipped to provide healthy options.  Milk is not sold in low-fat versions.  Items are sold at more than twice the price in suburban store-which makes purchasing a full supply of groceries unaffordable.  The same food purchased from other stores (e.g. Sam’s club, Save-a-Lot, Aldi’s, Family Dollar) is sold at up to 300% mark-up to residents that lack a healthy option-which is not an option at all.  ACTS will not tolerate unsafe, unhealthy and economically unsound practices that diminish the lives of our communities.  

Governor David Paterson’s office recently released $10 million statewide under the Healthy Food/Healthy Communities Initiative for which localities may apply in order to establish full-service grocery stores, especially in low-income neighborhoods.  We want resources not only to go to Downstate but also to Central New York, to Syracuse, and to the Southside!

We want the Syracuse Mayor’s office to apply for those funds.  ACTS members want to be involved with the application and program plan to establish a safer, healthier community.  We want-no, we DESERVE-the next mayor of Syracuse to have a signed agreement with a major supermarket for a full-service grocery store on the Southside of Syracuse-by June 2010.

We deserve a Mayor who will work with ACTS, our allies, the Common Council, in coalition with other organizations, to make healthy food access a priority in their first year of office so that we can create a comprehensive and strategic plan for healthy food access in every part of Syracuse.  We deserve the building blocks to a healthy community.

We have recently met with Governor David Paterson, who committed to bring resources for food access in the south side of Syracuse.