NORTH NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — It’s a number that’s hard to grasp — more than a quarter of people living in Nashville’s urban core live in designated food deserts.
In North Nashville, with the Kroger near Rosa Parks Boulevard still under renovation and the rising cost of groceries, many residents are struggling to put food on the table.
“It’s tough,” says Nashville resident Erroll Walker.
Like many people right now, Walker is trying to stretch his budget as food prices climb.
“Yeah, I got a lot of bills,” Walker says. “So that food bill — sometimes you have to put that on the back burner so you can pay your other bills.”
Even when he does have extra money, Walker says getting groceries is a challenge.
Normally, Walker would take his wheelchair to the Kroger on Rosa Parks and Monroe, but that store has been closed for months for renovations.
“[It's] really in no man’s land, you know what I mean?” Walker says. “You don’t have transportation — and a lot of people don’t in these low-income areas.”
Not long after work began at Kroger, the nonprofit Inspiritus opened a food bank on Ninth Avenue North, offering a critical lifeline.
“We didn’t expect to be that close to Kroger at that time,” says Janet Arning, executive director of Inspiritus. “It really turned out to be divine providence, I think, so folks that are used to walking to Kroger could walk right to us, almost in the backdrop of Kroger.”
With the store closed and grocery prices still climbing, Arning says demand for the food bank’s services jumped 43 percent from April through June.
“We have folks from all walks of life — folks on disability, seniors, families that are struggling, working full-time and just not able to pay rent and pay for groceries, medicine, and that sort of thing,” she says.
For Walker, that support is essential. “If it wasn’t for them, some people would probably basically starve — wouldn’t have anything to eat," he says.
Arning says Kroger has long been a strong partner, and she expects that relationship to continue when the store reopens on November 12.
This story was reported on-air by journalist Aaron Cantrell and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy
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