Eric Simpson grew up in LaGrange, Georgia, a rural city rich in history and home to about 30,000 people. As much as he loves his community, he has also witnessed firsthand how neglect and disinvestment have left certain areas without essential services. 

As a member of the West Georgia Farmers’ Cooperative, an organization of farmers, loggers, entrepreneurs, and craftsmen, Simpson saw an opportunity to use the group’s resources to bring new services to the community. By partnering with the LaGrange Housing Authority, Wholesome Wave Georgia, and Georgia Organics, Simpson saw an opportunity to bring critical services back to the community, including a  co-op grocery store, a commercial kitchen, a gas station, and a credit union to town.

“The grocery will be community-owned,” Simpson said. “It’s addressing a food access need. The place is somewhat of a food desert.”

To kickstart the project, the West Georgia Farmers’ Cooperative applied for and received a $200,000 grant from the 2021 Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Targeted Small Grants Program (TSG Program). HFFI is a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Reinvestment Fund, a nonprofit community development financial institution that provides financial and analytical tools to underserved communities around the country . HFFI offers resources, including grants, loans and technical assistance directly to organizations developing food retail and food supply chain business models. Additionally, HFFI provides capacity building and credit enhancement funding for local and regional Healthy Food Financing Partnerships. 

Since launching the first HFFI grant funding cycle in 2019, Reinvestment Fund announced in 2024 $155 million in funding through  the HFFI Food Access and Retail Expansion Fund (HFFI FARE Fund) with funding made available through the 2021 Biden-Harris Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act and other relief resources. 

The grant that West Georgia Farmers’ Cooperative received would allow them to begin pre-development of the project, a necessary and sometimes costly step towards bringing the vision to life.

“This project is going to be situated in a community that’s been long abandoned and disinvested,” Simpson said. “There’s not a grocery store, and this is a pretty big community with a lot of economic potential. And ironically, it’s also being expanded, but it’s still not spurring the economic development that will provide the community the basic things it needs.”

Along a roughly three-mile thoroughfare that runs through the community, Simpson said just a couple of convenience marts exist, offering few healthy options or fresh produce. The coming grocery store, however, will offer an alternative, with plenty of food locally grown by the West Georgia Farmers’ Cooperative. That store is scheduled to be built on two acres of land purchased by the co-op in 2022.  

The entire enterprise will not only offer healthy food, but also create jobs and bring the community together. A planned commercial kitchen will offer incubator space for culinary entrepreneurs. 

“We’re just trying to do our part to stimulate economic development in a community that others don’t want to invest in,” Simpson said. “For a co-op, the owners and shoppers are anchored in the community. They want these products and services, and by owning it, it ensures they continue to have those services and products.”

With the HFFI-funded planning phase nearly complete, the next step involves ironing out the more technical aspects of the project, which will be dependent on securing additional funding.

“We’re venturing into some new territory,” Simpson said of the West Georgia Farmers’ Cooperative. “If successful, we can create a model we can replicate in other areas in the region and maybe even nationally, with similar demographics to LaGrange.”

The American Rescue Plan Act was a stimulus package passed by the 117th U.S. Congress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was signed into law in March of 2021 to aid in the country’s economic recovery.