In 2020, the Walmart Foundation awarded grants to 11 community-based projects offering innovative approaches to supporting healthy food access. The grants focused on initiatives that improve access to fresh foods for regions and populations experiencing disproportionately high rates of food insecurity. The St. Mary’s Nutrition Center, one of the 11 grantees, focused on increasing equitable and reliable access to fresh food by building the capacity of existing programs and enhancing cooperation among existing initiatives to better meet Lewiston-Auburn, Maine’s needs.

Key features of the initiative included running a food pantry, hiring residents of the Somali, Djiboutian, and Sudanese communities to conduct outreach within their communities to improve communication with groups whose primary language may not be English, and holding community listening sessions to share decisionmaking power with people in the community. We found that food-access initiatives that center community choice and voice could support local organizations in matching services to communities’ needs.