We’re excited to announce that, in partnership with the Easy Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), PCM has been awarded a $750,000 grant from the federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI).

The HFFI grant program is a public-private partnership to improve access to healthy foods in low-income communities and communities of color. The program also strives to connect low-income residents to jobs, training, and capital to start and grow businesses that that are sorely needed in underserved communities.

EBALDC is the grant awardee and PCM is the project to be supported by the grant. EBALDC will provide the majority of the grant as a low-interest loan to PCM for working capital, starting inventory and other startup costs. This will provide critically important cash flow for PCM’s day-to-day operations and, as a result, will strengthen PCM’s ability to secure the balance of financing needed to construct its store.

The HFFI grant will help create the first full-service grocery store in the West Oakland neighborhoods targeted by PCM’s project since the 1970’s. And it will help provide access to fresh foods, groceries and prepared foods, at affordable prices, within walking distance to four low-income census tracts and to 9,000 nearby residents. In addition, the grant will support the creation of 30 new full-time permanent jobs in the community, with at least 75% of the new full-time positions to be filled by individuals with low incomes.

While winning this grant took a well-developed application and a solid partnership with EBALDC, we would not have won this award without the $1.5M in investment that has been made by PCM’s 460+ Founding Shareholders. Our ability to show broad public support and investment was critical validation of the strong foundation of community relationships that PCM is being built on.

Our ultimate goal is raise a total of $2M from selling company stock to people in the public who believe in the mission of this social enterprise. Help us reach this goal by becoming a Founding Shareholder. Join the PCM community and help us nurture and serve the West Oakland community for decades to come.