News
Gift from Fifth Third Bank to help start market
6/21/2010
The Martha O’Bryan Center will use a recent $5,300 gift from Fifth Third Bank to improve food access for residents in Cayce Place, CWA-Plaza Apartments and the surrounding neighborhoods in lower east Nashville.
Plans are being formulated to open a small community market at the center. Funding will be used for start-up costs and to purchase dairy, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables and non-food items and sell them well below market prices.
“We are so proud to support the launch of the community market,” said Connie White Marketing and PR Director for Fifth Third Bank. “During a time when needs overflow in the greater Nashville area, we must do our best to feed our neighbors and provide assistance to those in need.”
The Martha O’Bryan Center is located in Cayce Place, formerly known as James A. Cayce Homes. It’s the oldest, largest and poorest public housing development in Metro Nashville, with 2,600 residents living in 720 rental units on 63 acres. Half of the residents are children, and the average annual household income is $5,000.
The neighborhood Martha O’Bryan serves is considered one of Nashville’s food deserts. Many residents there don’t have cars, and with no grocery stores within easy walking distance, healthy food is hard to get. As a result, people make the easier food choices, which are usually high in fat and low in nutrition. Those choices put them at higher risk for health problems like obesity and diabetes.
“The families who live in these neighborhoods normally have no choices, or very few choices,” said Marsha Edwards, President and CEO of Martha O’Bryan Center. “If you don’t have access to a car, you can’t drive to the store for milk at $2.69 a gallon. The only store within walking distance charges $5 for a gallon. Now these families will have additional choice.”
The market would continue earlier work to improve food access for its neighbors. A group of Martha O’Bryan Center volunteers, the Young Professionals Committee, organized a fundraiser to fund bi-weekly bus trips to Kroger and Aldi at Gallatin Road and Eastland Street, the nearest grocery stores to Cayce Place. Those trips will begin this month, giving residents opportunities to visit the bank, Dollar General, the Goodwill Store and other businesses in the same shopping area.
About the Martha O’Bryan Center
On a foundation of Christian faith, Martha O'Bryan Center empowers children, youth, and adults in poverty to transform their lives through work, education, employment and fellowship. Martha O’Bryan Center enables vulnerable families living in Nashville’s most distressed neighborhood overcome the many obstacles limiting them from living healthy, full lives. Experience shows that communities are healthiest when parents are working and children are succeeding in school. To help achieve these aims, we provide a highway of integrated services for the entire family that engages schools and community partners along the way. Learn more at www.marthaobryan.org.
About Fifth Third Bank
Fifth Third Bancorp is a diversified financial services company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Learn more at www.53.com.
