Fairmount Five Market brings free groceries to District 5 residents

A grocery market opened inside the Fairmount Heights Branch Library with a simple test of whether Prince George’s County can do more than announce food programs and actually narrow the gap in District 5. Up to 200 families a week can now shop for free groceries at 5904 Kolb St. in Fairmount Heights.

Council Member Shayla Adams-Stafford launched the Fairmount Five Market with Goodr and the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System at an 11:30 a.m. opening on World Hunger Day. The setup is meant to look and feel different from a traditional food pantry, giving residents a shop-style experience that county officials say is meant to reduce stigma.

The market is the first of two free grocery stores planned in Prince George’s County. A District 7 Free Grocery Store led by Chair Krystal Oriadha is expected to open in the coming weeks, extending the county’s food-access push beyond Fairmount Heights.

The numbers show both the urgency and the limits of the effort. County officials put the market’s weekly capacity at up to 200 District 5 families. A separate estimate put the figure at up to 175 families, or at least 350 people, each week, backed by a $200,000 non-departmental grant. However the final count settles, the central question is whether that level of service can make a measurable dent in a county where health data cited by the council shows 12% of residents are food insecure and nearly 20% of children live in food-insecure households.

That need is not spread evenly. Some District 5 residents travel more than a mile to reach a grocery store or cross into Washington, D.C., to shop. One resident pointed to the recent closure of the Shoppers supermarket in Capital Heights as another sign that fresh produce has become harder to access. For households already balancing rent, transportation and rising food prices, the difference between a nearby store and a long trip can shape what ends up on the table.

The county has been laying groundwork for this effort for years. The Prince George’s County Food Security Task Force was created by Council Resolution CR-62-2020 and extended by CR-70-2021, building on the 2015 Healthy Food for All Prince Georgians assessment and the 2018 Healthy Food Policy Project. That planning found inside-the-Beltway neighborhoods face the county’s highest rates of diet-related illness and food insecurity, and that unhealthy food venues make up about 55% of food retail outlets in those communities. Goodr, founded in 2017, is described by county officials as a Black female-owned hunger and food-waste solutions company with more than 30 grocery stores in 19 states. The market in Fairmount Heights now has to prove whether that model can scale from promise to practical relief.