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<\/p>\nThe former Parkrose Grocery Outlet owner hopes to open a locally owned market by Thanksgiving with community support and fundraising.<\/p>\n
PORTLAND, Oregon \u2014 A coalition of community leaders, business owners and residents are working to bring a grocery store back to Northeast Portland’s Parkrose neighborhood after the area’s Grocery Outlet closed earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Former Grocery Outlet owner and manager Don McKeeder hopes to open a “fully locally-owned” store in the vacated building by mid-November.<\/p>\n
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McKeeder is partnering with Historic Parkrose and other community leaders to raise $30,000 to launch the business. The project has already received an $8,000 no-interest loan from Historic Parkrose, along with a $6,000 donation from Portland City Council President Jamie Dunphy’s office.<\/p>\n
City council members said they became involved after hearing about the crime and lack of city support McKeeder faced while operating the Grocery Outlet.<\/p>\n
Dunphy, who lives just blocks from the former Grocery Outlet, encouraged others to support the effort.<\/p>\n
“I hope everyone else in the community, who is able, will meaningfully chip in, and we can see this project come to reality,” Dunphy said.<\/p>\n
McKeeder said the new grocery store will have a better security system and offer more than food. Plans include creating a community gathering space, as well as expanding products for families with infants and toddlers.<\/p>\n
“They all expressed their wish they wanted a warm deli, or to get a coffee or to get something, a bite, and they could have their conversations,” McKeeder said.<\/p>\n
Parkrose Coffee owner Lily Burnett said community support helped her own business get started and could do the same for the new grocery store.<\/p>\n
“We raised $10,000 on GoFundMe from community members who wanted to see something positive being developed in Parkrose,” Burnett said.<\/p>\n
Supporters hope the coffee shop and proposed grocery store will help revitalize a neighborhood that has struggled with crime and disinvestment.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people are jaded right now and are just trying to figure out if the hope is real or not,” said Hector Marquez, executive director of Historic Parkrose.<\/p>\n
McKeeder said reopening the store is about refusing to let crime define the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
“Because of a few bad apples, you can’t retreat. You can’t ditch the effort, and other people suffer. You have to stand your ground, find solutions, and that’s what we’re doing,” McKeeder said.<\/p>\n
Local business owners say reopening the grocery store is critical to preventing Parkrose from becoming a food desert.<\/p>\n
“People are having to travel by car or bus to get out of the neighborhood to buy groceries, and we have a lot of homebound seniors in Parkrose, and this is just too big of a lift,” Burnett said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former Parkrose Grocery Outlet owner hopes to open a locally owned market by Thanksgiving with community support and fundraising. PORTLAND, Oregon \u2014 A coalition of community leaders, business owners and residents are working to bring a grocery store back to Northeast Portland’s Parkrose neighborhood after the area’s Grocery Outlet closed earlier this year. Former<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4491,4489,4487,4490,4488],"class_list":["post-10262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oregon","tag-oregon","tag-oregon-dining","tag-oregon-food","tag-oregon-grocery-stores","tag-oregon-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117272606401082237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}