American Heart Association | American Stroke Association, The Food Trust and
NJ YMCA State Alliance Encourage NJ Policymakers
to Make Healthy Food Accessible for ALL in the Garden State!
Volunteers and staff gather at NJ State House to publicly thank sponsors of the A-4505/S-3043— Healthy Small Food Retailer Act—that would create a Statewide Healthy Corner Store Initiative.
Trenton, NJ— Volunteers and staff from the American Heart Association | American Stroke Association, The Food Trust and the NJ YMCA State Alliance gathered at the NJ State House today to recognize the legislative sponsors of the ‘Healthy Small Food Retailer Act’ and encourage policymakers to take swift action on the bill. The legislation, A4505 (Wimberly; Sumter; Diegnan; Garcia; Fuentes; Benson)/S-3043 (Rice, Cruz-Perez, Vitale), would set aside $1million in state funds to increase the availability and sale of healthy, affordable food in local corner stores and bodegas in New Jersey communities that are underserved by supermarkets.
The NJ Small Food Retailer Act is modeled after the New Jersey Healthy Corner Store Initiative—a partnership of The Food Trust, New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids and American Heart Association | American Stroke Association—that is successfully up-and-running in several pilot cities with local partners providing education, training and other support small retailers need to profitably stock, market and sell healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food.
In just three years, this small, localized public health and economic development strategy is yielding impressive results in increasing people’s access to affordable, healthy food in five pilot cities. It is also bolstering economic development efforts by generating local jobs and capturing retail dollars that would otherwise be spent outside of the community. A-4505/S-3043 would enable the expansion of the impactful local innovations to additional New Jersey communities that lack access to affordable, fresh foods.
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