Salvation Army has a long history of helping those in needs in their copious locations across the country; the nonprofit has provided aid to people in many different facets of life. So, what’s their next venture? A nonprofit grocery store chain and it’s the first of its kind. “Baltimore got the country’s inaugural location of DMG Foods (after the nonprofit’s motto, “Doing the Most Good”). Called the first-ever national nonprofit grocery chain,” The grocery store has popped up in Baltimore, Maryland in the middle of the city’s largest food desert. This is an exciting advancement in the fight to put an end to the devastating affects of food deserts in America. The Salvation Army is helping to provide healthy options to Americans who find themselves in places with only fast food options.
The overall goal is to provide a chain of affordable, non profit groceries to “low-income residents in the country’s food deserts, nutrition-poor areas where people have no or extremely limited access to low-cost, healthy food.” This is extremely important if our country ever wants to eradicate obesity because – to no surprise – if people don’t have access to nutritional foods, they won’t eat healthy and their overall health is compromised. “The U.S. is actually plagued by this terrible phenomenon, and it often occurs in neighborhoods brimming with food outlets — fast-food chains that arguably worsen the country’s obesity epidemic as much as help end hunger.” As of now, there is only one grocery store like this in the USA, but The Salvation Army has plans to roll out similar stores in other areas of need. The public has responded extremely positively to this idea, so hopefully, one day nonprofit groceries will become commonplace.