by Sharelle B. McNair
October 15, 2025
Rhonda Vesey, often called “Aunt Rhonda,” created a profitable grassroots marketing campaign
The story of Rhonda Vesey, who stopped at nothing to convey a grocery retailer to a Syracuse, New York, meals desert, proves that generally it takes neighborhood management to get what’s wanted in their very own neighborhoods, Syracuse.com reported.
Vesey, a former company finance skilled and the daughter of a Nineteen Fifties Civil Rights pioneer, took issues into her personal arms to convey recent meals choices again to the Valley neighborhood in want after Tops Pleasant Markets shut down. In collaboration with Buffalo-based grocery entrepreneur A.Okay. Kaid, Vesey, often called “Aunt Rhonda,” efficiently led a grassroots marketing campaign to switch Tops with the Tremendous Imperial Market, which affords recent produce, meats, ready scorching meals, and different key grocery objects.
Kaid known as her “a giant participant” in enjoying the auntie function of staying on prime of the challenge. Opened in Might 2025, the challenge included renovations with a price ticket of $2.1 million.
Vesey mentioned she was “knocking on everyone’s doorways,” leaning on her spectacular rolodex of contacts, together with the plaza proprietor, Ellicott Growth, based by former New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino. She spent 5 years emailing, calling, and visiting grocery retailer operators throughout the Northeast, even hounding native, state, and federal elected officers to help the trigger.
After leaving her profession in finance in 2020, Vesey put all her power into creating Meals Entry Wholesome Neighborhoods Now (FAHNN), an area group that works with volunteers to fill the hole with recent meals choices, with farmers’ markets for neighborhoods labeled as meals deserts — areas the place little recent produce is obtainable close to residents’ houses. Her work has not solely fed these in determined want but in addition helped her thrive, getting by way of the laborious days following the passing of her mom. “Since [I started], I’ve not been depressed since. I’ve been operating quick and livid,” Vesey mentioned, in response to Native Syr.
“Having the title in Syracuse, New York, of being essentially the most impoverished within the nation is an unpleasant title. And that’s another excuse, I’m going to maintain operating.”
Shutting its doorways in 2018, Tops was the final recent meals useful resource in proximity. The closest choices have been roughly two miles away, creating a big barrier for low-income residents who typically lack dependable transportation. And Syracuse isn’t the one metropolis coping with such points. Lack of recent meals entry is an issue in nearly each American metropolis, some with a robust Black and Hispanic demographic. Metropolis management typically struggles to persuade retailer house owners to put money into low-income areas.
Cities like Muncie, Indiana, positioned in Delaware County, are one in every of them. Out of 65,000 residents, 64% reside in areas thought of meals deserts, in response to Cardinal Media. CEO of Second Harvest Meals Financial institution, Becca Clawson, mentioned the county has “one of many highest charges of meals insecurity within the state.”
However due to Black ladies like Aunt Rhonda, who’ve embraced the problem of making dependable meals choices, issues could begin to flip round. “We don’t wish to see a retailer go away us once more,” she mentioned.
“It might’t occur.”
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