Nikki Lake is standing on the corner of East Third and Kelly Street. It's the heart of east Chattanooga, just a half-mile away from two hospitals, five schools and thousands of single-family homes - some selling for $85,000, others for $850,000 - but zero pharmacies or big-name grocery stores.

This is ground zero of our city's food and pharmacy desert.

"There used to be two grocery stores here," she said.

No longer. To our left, a KFC. Across East Third, a dialysis clinic.

"This is the main part: it's hardest to get food," she said.

Several blocks away, the shuttered Food City.

Nikki is attempting to do what few others, if any, have done in this city. Facing the food desert Goliath, she and a team are planning a mighty, odds-against-them, heroic response.

A food cooperative. They call it: The Chattanooga Community Co-op.

"Big vision?" she said. "A co-op or fresh food store in every neighborhood.

"Beginning vision? To get this co-op up and running and have 200 members."

She grew up a few blocks over. Stays nearby on Camden. Before everything changed inside her heart, body and mind, she'd shop for groceries at convenience stores, gas stations and dollar stores.

"Breakfast burritos, beans and cheese, Hot Pockets and chips," she said.

We first met Nikki at a Chattanooga Food Coalition meeting. Instant friends, we were drawn to her work. Her email signature includes the line: Live Long & Prosper.

We walk one block to the nearby dollar store. Near the back, just next to the freezer section.

"This is the food aisle," she said.

There are five shelves spanning the aisle. Snack cakes, fudge-striped cookies, soft drinks, powdered donuts, hot fries and chips. It is all processed, high-calorie, low-content or nutrition.  

"It's probably enough to fill a kid up," she said.

Open up all nearby fridges and pantries within a food desert. How much food comes from a dollar store or gas station?

"Probably the majority," she said. "Everybody under 45 has convenience stuff in their cabinets, especially if they've got kids."

There is no shame in snack cakes. We're not standing there in the dollar store "Food Pantry" aisle as local food elitists.

We're attempting to support Nikki as she offers a solution to this massive problem.

When a confluence of forces and influences makes generational health and wellbeing nearly out-of-reach for thousands of Chattanooga households, and the powers that be continually to ignore this while directing immeasurable resources elsewhere - looking at you, riverfront development - it is important to see clearly into the dynamics - macro and micro - behind it all.

When you don't have reliable transportation or steady, living-wage income ... and nearby big grocery stores shut their doors ... and things feel lost generationally ... and working two jobs means you have no time for a garden ... well, easiest becomes what you reach for.

Inside the dollar store's "Food Pantry" section, one set of shelves contain canned vegetables: spinach for $1, pork and beans, tomatoes, okra, mushrooms, corn, lima beans.

"It's the smallest section," said Nikki.

What is the psychological effect - subtle and overt - when invisible forces outside of your control make it harder and harder to easily access fresh healthy food and medicine?

Imagine if your nearby grocery store shuttered its doors. Then, the pharmacy. Imagine if you rarely, if ever, see fresh fruit or vegetables where you shop for food.

"People don't know how to cook with real food anymore," she said. "After not seeing your mama or grandmama cook, you don't have the need or want to cook either."

We travel a half-mile away to an empty box store. The former Walgreen's.

"You can see how empty it is," she said.

A few years ago, the Walmart's Neighborhood Market on Shallowford Road closed. For Nikki, it was a gut punch.

"Reality smacked me," she said. "Something isn’t right about this."

So, like countless citizen-activists before her, she intoned the magic words:

"I wanted to do something about it."

Turns out, she wasn't alone.

In 2022, Nikki and a dozen other community members received funding and support from the Bethlehem Center and Chattanooga Area Food Bank to form The Chattanooga Community Co-Op.

"Knowing that many parts of Chattanooga are considered to be in a food apartheid, this spurred a passion to create a more efficient business model for distributing locally grown produce and small batch, farm-sourced products," they wrote.

They called it "A New Era for Local Access and Food Security." One of their members - Deonte Jackson - drafted a vision statement.

• Imagine a place where you can shop for fresh produce, quality pantry staples, and essential household items—all while supporting your neighbors and reinvesting in your own community.
• This is the promise of Chattanooga Community Co-Op, a new cooperative grocery store set to serve Chattanooga’s food dessert areas (37404/37407) and nearby neighborhoods struggling with food accessibility.
• Located in what’s known as a food desert, the co-op aims to be more than just a grocery store; it will be a community anchor, bringing fresh, affordable food to areas that have long needed it.

Their cooperative model is member-owned. Paying members contribute financially, becoming part-owners. A collective. A community.

"I love history and cooperative economics," Nikki said.

Their leadership team includes the co-founder of food pantry, a Chattanooga Food Bank employee, a senior pastor, a social worker, a member with a master's degree in sustainable food systems.

"A food Co-Op is one tool that will help to patch the frayed safety net that so many in our community are clinging to desperately," wrote Ella Kilger, a longtime food bank employee and steering committee member.

"Too often, money is spent on food that has traveled hundreds or thousands of miles, losing nutritional value and taste in that process, and poured into pockets of corporations that remove those funds from Chattanooga. Our food Co-Op will grow jobs locally, keep profits here, create a hub for education and connection, and improve the health of those most in need."

In Nashville, folks are forming the Nashville Food Co-Op - "a community grocery" - after a 2015 Kickstarter raised $15,000 in less than a week.

"Two of our founding members have lived in Vermont, where co-ops are everywhere and an integral part of the food system," the Nashville folks wrote. "They got together with some like-minded locals and started the Nashville Food Co-op to bring this model, which is popular all over the country, to the city we love and call home."

What seems abnormal in Chattanooga is quite normal elsewhere. According to the National Cooperative Business Association, food cooperatives, which began in the 1850s, serve more than 1 million members in 38 US states.

Why does it feel like such an uphill struggle here?

There are pockets of change and goodness.

We walk inside the Dollar General, across from the empty Walgreen's.

Recently, Dollar General installed a fresh food section.

Oranges, Fuji apples, cabbage, cucumbers, guacamole, grapes, blueberries, a Caesar salad, potatoes, onions, white mushrooms, bananas, carrots, trail mixes, nuts and smoothies.

"I feel like it’s a step in the right direction," she said.

We continue our tour. A quarter-mile away, one of our most favorite places in the city.

Gaining Ground Grocery.

Formed with the visionary leadership of Holly Martin, Gaining Ground offers an abundance of directly + locally-sourced produce from area farmers.

It is the most farmer-centric grocery store in the city.

Open Wednesday-thru-Saturday in the old St. Andrew's Center in Highland Park, Gaining Ground also sells staples - olive oil, teas, detergents, soaps, spices, butter, coffee, flours, oatmeal - alongside eggs, mushrooms, meat, bread and more. You can buy in bulk. Less waste.

It's one of the most beautiful places in the city.

Nikki, who graduated The Howard School in 2003, was a teen mom. While pregnant, she noticed the way her body responded to certain foods. Eat this? Feel bad. Eat that? Feel better.

This began her slow drift away from processed food.

"I think it plays a big role in how you feel," she said. "Processed - it doesn't feel natural to me."

Today, she's a lease specialist with Unum, working a 40-hour week. She pays $1400 in rent. She relies on child support, deposited on Mondays, to buy groceries. She estimates she spends $400 a month on food.

"I use my child support money to buy food. We run out by Saturday or Sunday," she said.

She shops mostly at Aldi or IGA.

"Mostly meat and vegetables," she said. "Tomatoes, okra, baking and roasting zucchini and squash. Tomatoes go in tacos or a salad."

She's asking for help building this Chattanooga Community Co-op.

Become a member. Donate. Connect and network within the Chattanooga system.

Remember how strong a group of committed citizens can be.

"Instead of people worrying about the federal government, remember what we could do for ourselves," she said. "We don't have to depend on outside money to get it done. We can do it for ourselves."

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This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.