DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A new, free grocery store opened in a DeKalb County school on Friday thanks to a partnership between the City of Stonecrest and a hunger relief nonprofit.
Goodr, a grocery-focused nonprofit, opened up the store at Martin Luther King, Jr. High School to help students and families in need.
Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen got to see how that help will work.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. High in Stonecrest has 1,400 students, but school officials say it can be hard to stay focused on your education if you haven’t had anything to eat.
“It’s actually a really sad thing to see,” 11th Grader Alex Pandy told Peterson.
Pandy has classmates who “live it” every day, but now, officials say help has arrived.
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“It was a need and we’re filling the need,” Principal Michael Alexander told Channel 2 Action News.
He helped lead the grand opening of what they’re now calling the “Lion’s Den Grocery,” the county’s first free grocery store.
Opened up inside the high school, Stonecrest Mayor Jazzmin Cobble said it’ll help students learn.
“One thing we wanted to do to support our students was make sure the distractions in the classrooms are alleviated, one of which is hunger,” Cobble said.
To make that happen, Stonecrest teamed up with Goodr and the high school to help students and families pick up what they need, whether it’s fresh meat, fresh produce, frozen food or canned goods.
Whatever the need is, officials want to make sure students and their families don’t go hungry.
Pandy said it’ll do a lot of good.
“They don’t have to worry about that anymore. It’s not a distraction, like, hey, I don’t know what I’m gonna eat tonight, or where,” Pandy said. “This bridges that gap.”
School administrators said the free grocery store will serve between 25 to 50 families at first, and will grow from there.
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