Ward 2 lacks affordable places to buy groceries and, in my opinion, never had a reliable source of groceries prior to the closest longstanding grocery store that is now closed. Currently, a significantly more expensive grocery chain is set to move into the old grocery store location and its opening day is unknown. Even if we wanted to struggle to pay for groceries at an expensive store, we don’t even have an option to do so. For those who do not have cars, it takes roughly a 2 hour bus round trip from Ward 2 to Walmart (assuming that you can rush through your shopping) to do groceries at one of our cheapest grocery locations in town. We either develop our public transportation system to become more frequent or have the food options come to us. 

Currently, the Community Action Center, the local food pantry, stations a Mobile Market around the county and have made occasional appearances at Ward 2. Occasional does not cut it when residents experience food insecurity all the time in the face of rising cost of living. Currently, I have tossed around the idea with the other Ward 2 councilmember, Nathan Weller, who may collaborate with me to implement a biweekly appearance of the Mobile Market at a central Apartment Land location. I’m currently planning to plant more seeds for this to come into fruition, but I would like eventually to reel in ASEs and other students to help me push it into reality. 

Students at WSU have made a lot of movement to address food insecurity, but I believe that it is time for the city to also step in. I believe the city of Pullman has obligation to take care of everyone and consider students as a part of the community.