Newark’s new citywide grocery plan is built on a store Clinton Hill Community Action opened in the South Ward in 2024, two years before City Hall took up the idea.
By Jaydeen DeCambre
NEWARK, N.J. — This month, Newark opened community grocery stores in all five wards, a citywide effort to sell fresh, affordable food in neighborhoods that have gone without it for too long. The plan may seem new but the idea behind it is not.
Nearly two years before the city announced its plan, Clinton Hill Community Action had already opened one. Our Community Grocery Store, at 393 Hawthorne Avenue in the South Ward, opened its doors in October 2024 as Newark’s first mutual-aid based community grocery store. Today the city is scaling that store’s model across every ward, and Mayor Ras J. Baraka credits the effort to a “proven neighborhood blueprint pioneered by Clinton Hill Community Action in the South Ward.”
The store runs on a mutual aid model. Goods carry little to no markup, and neighbors who contribute receive food each week. It is a grocery store, not a pantry. There are no lines to stand in and no hoops to jump through. Residents shop for what their families want, which restores dignity to a process that too often comes with stress and shame.
“We opened Our Community Grocery Store because our neighbors deserve fresh, good food sold with dignity, not a line to stand in. We did that here in the South Ward before it was a headline anywhere,” said Khaatim Sherrer El, Executive Director of Clinton Hill Community Action. “Seeing our neighborhood’s work become the model for all of Newark tells me we’ve been on the right track from the start.”
In its first two years, the store has become something the neighborhood counts on. It has 280 members who shop for what their families need. A produce box program for seniors has reached 50 residents, with close to 200 boxes delivered since the store opened and about 15 going out each cycle, sourced in partnership with the Greater Newark Conservancy and the Urban Agriculture Cooperative. Medical professionals have led 12 nutrition education classes. There is an allergen-free cooking workshop run with FARE, a smoothie and juice bar pouring neighborhood favorites like the Hawthorne smoothie and Rooted Pressed Green Awakening cold-pressed juice, goods from 10 local Newark vendors on the shelves, and a gathering space that draws everyone from Seniors in Action to after-school youth.
Now the city is taking that approach citywide. Under Mayor Baraka, Newark is opening community grocery stores in all five wards and has chosen to keep them community-based, run by trusted local organizations rather than managed from City Hall. Baraka named CHCA’s Khaatim Sherrer El and La Casa de Don Pedro’s Peter Rosario co-chairs of the citywide effort. Each ward’s store is operated by a rooted neighborhood organization, scaling the approach CHCA proved on Hawthorne Avenue.
Newark’s move comes as cities across the country look at public grocery models to bring down food costs. In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has proposed city-owned stores, with the first not expected to open until at least 2027. Newark took a different path, and took it earlier. Its stores are run by the neighborhoods themselves, and its first one was already open and serving residents in the South Ward while other cities were still drawing up plans.
Our Community Grocery Store remains open at 393 Hawthorne Avenue. CHCA invites residents to come see the store that started it all, shop for affordable groceries, and learn how community-owned food works.
Companion piece: “How We Built a Grocery Store,” an insider’s account of how the first store came together, by Jaydeen DeCambre.
For more information on, check out Our Community Grocery Store
