Waterloo’s Walnut neighborhood is no longer a food desert.
After 47 years, the designation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been dispelled. Nearly 200 residents of the city’s predominantly Black northeastern area welcomed All-In Grocers and the Willie Mae Wright Community Center with a celebration under a massive tent.
The store will feature after-school programs through the city’s 1619 Freedom School in the community center, as well as a restaurant and a reentry program for community members adjusting to life after incarceration.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, director of the Freedom School and creator of the 1619 Project, was one of the speakers at the opening. She said the celebration itself highlights the neighborhood's struggles.
“We shouldn’t have to have a celebration for the opening of a grocery store in our own community,” she said. “It just shows that we have so many obstacles to overcome for things that other communities can just do normally.”
The planning and execution of All-In Grocers took seven years and faced multiple hurdles from local funding withdrawal to a global pandemic to pushback from private interests.
Project developer and community leader Rodney Anderson said that those hurdles are now behind him, and he can focus on growth. The community center, he said, will be an integral part of that.
“We’re going to feed people, but not just with food. We’re going to be feeding their minds as well,” Anderson said.
Another way Anderson is looking to grow his community is through generating employment. The initial project estimated that the operation would employ between 60 and 80 people, and All-In has had little difficulty so far filling those jobs.
“I left my job at Tyson to come work here because I wanted to be a part of this,” said Waterloo native Cierra Bennett, who works All-In’s meat department.
Employee stories like Bennett’s resonate from all corners of the store: some left Hy-Vee, or other, larger grocers. Others have left behind entirely different fields to pitch in to the Walnut vision.
As he shuttled his community through the new aisles of fresh produce, fritter samples and cuts of meat, Anderson said All-In is his perfect picture of Waterloo’s present and future.
“This was all people coming together: White, Black, Latino — everybody. It looks like Waterloo, and it feels like Waterloo," he said. "And now, we’re changing the culture of Waterloo.”
