New Hanover County Endowment investing more than $6.5 million for Northside grocery store

February 21, 2024

WWAY News,

New Hanover County Community Endowment List Revealed — New Hanover Community Endowment (Photo: WWAY)

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The New Hanover Community Endowment is investing $6,792,000 over three years in the construction and operation of the Northside Food Cooperative.

The project is a startup grocery store that will revitalize and bring healthy food access to the Northside neighborhood, according to a press release.

“This is the first step toward eradicating a 35-year-old food desert on Wilmington’s Northside,” said Bill Cameron, chairman of the New Hanover Community Endowment board. “We’re excited to invest in grassroots solutions like the Northside Food Cooperative and look forward to partnering with them and New Hanover County to bring a grocery store to the community.”

The Endowment is joining New Hanover County in the project. In January 2022, the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners voted to build and construct a Northside grocery store as part of its community building plan.“We are thrilled that the Endowment has chosen to provide funding that will support the Northside Food Co-op over the next three years,” said Bill Rivenbark, chair of the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners. “This financial commitment is crucial in helping the ongoing partnership between New Hanover County and the Northside Food Co-op to address the food desert that has long impacted this community.”

“A partnership with local government and a larger foundation like that is such a 180 to the systemic disinvestment the Northside community has suffered from,” said Cierra Washington, project manager for the Northside Food Cooperative. “Food is not a privilege, it’s just something you should be able to have. By putting it in our community, by putting it specifically in this place in the Northside, we are saying you deserve food just as much as anyone else in the community and you deserve good food.”

The grocery store is currently in the planning and development phase with construction scheduled to commence in 2025 and a grand opening in early 2026.