By Jamie Borgan
Bong Cho in her West Central corner store.
A Friday night at Bong’s Grocery & Deli in West Central Spokane hums with the sounds of an urban oasis. For starters, the dinging sound the door makes as it opens and closes is a constant in the neighborhood soundtrack. The energy in the store is busy, but amiable, as customers make polite conversation with Bong Cho, the energetic proprietor. While some of the store’s visitors are buying gas as they head out for the evening, a large portion of the people who frequent Bong’s are walking.
The heavy foot traffic reflects two realities of the neighborhood: many West Central residents don’t drive and thus, they shop locally. Because the nearest grocery store is several miles away, having to do your shopping at smaller stores like Bong’s understandably limits your selections. The corner stores of the neighborhood are loaded with choices, of a sort: packaged food options, candy, soda, cigarettes, and energy drinks. Yet, when it comes to fresh food, the options narrow, especially in winter time when the produce stands of the neighborhood close up shop.
Recognizing the vital resource that corner stores are for low income neighborhoods, the Spokane Regional Health District helped launch the Healthy Corner Store initiative at Bong’s. The program has already seen success in other parts of the country, including Seattle and New Orleans.
As opposed to a heavy-handed Carrie Nation style hatcheting of the potato chip aisle, the Healthy Corner Store initiative approach is non-invasive and guided by the realities of the neighborhood it serves. While Bong’s has always stocked some produce, the section has been expanded and now includes some pleasant surprises: cabbage, living lettuce, and blueberries for example. An end cap of low sugar cereal now sits in an area formerly occupied by chips and salty snacks.
The selection of Bong’s makes sense. In 2007, an arson fire destroyed the former structure, and the tidy pleasantly lit building reconstructed in its wake is a nerve center of the neighborhood, And the program couldn’t have a more credible ambassador than Bong Cho, the face and heart of Bong’s Grocery & Deli. Working twelve or thirteen hours a day, nearly every day of the week, Bong’s involvement in the goings on in the neighborhood is part entrepreneurial, part social worker.
The "healthy corner" in Bong's Grocery & Deli
Spend more than five minutes in the store, and it’s obvious that Bong not only knows her customer’s tobacco preferences, but also their social milieu. She inquires hospitably about family members, health problems, the status of an unpaid power bill. The bounce to her step and her seemingly unending energy are quickly explained by Cho as a result of her own healthy lifestyle.
The program has found immediate traction in the neighborhood. Flouting the misconception that people on limited incomes don’t want to buy healthy food, grateful consumers are buying Greek yogurt, cabbage, and organic pasta in droves. Bong happily reports that neighbors are not only buying the food, but thanking her for making it available in a way that makes sense for their lives.
The program isn’t without its road bumps. During the grand opening celebration for the initiative, a six-year-old from the neighborhood sat in the parking lot, downing a neon blue beverage. He insisted it was healthy. When told that the product is loaded with sugar, he replied: “But it’s got 100% of my daily Vitamin C.”
The term “healthy” may be open to interpretation, especially in the eyes of a six year old, but at least the shoppers at Bong’s now have more room to play with that definition.
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