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Bringing jobs and a source of nourishment to Fruit Belt 

Church broadening its mission with plan for a grocery store that will employ 50

By Denise Jewell Gee

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Published: October 6, 2011

St. John Baptist Church is already in the business of housing, education, real estate and hospice.

By next summer, it also plans to be in the grocery business.

Church leaders Wednesday unveiled a $1.5 million plan to construct a two-story market at High and Mulberry streets that will offer fresh fruit and vegetables, a wellness center and a dental office.

"We believe this will be the initiative for us to deal with nutrition, weight control, discipline, healthy living, all of those components," Pastor Michael Chapman said.

The 10,000-square-foot building will be across from a Kaleida Health nursing home now under construction, and Chapman expects the small grocery store to tap into a growing customer base in the neighborhood as the medical corridor expands nearby.

But the heart of the project — which is part of Chapman's multimillion-dollar vision to rebuild the Fruit Belt neighborhood — is providing jobs and fresh food to those who already live there.

"We believe this urban development model will create our own economic engine within this community," Chapman said.

He expects construction on the corner market to begin in April and take 120 days.

Chapman, who was joined by Mayor Byron W. Brown and Erie County Executive Chris Collins during a news conference Wednesday at the site of the future store, said the project's funding would come from several public and private sources.

The church plans to put $800,000 into the project and has applied for an additional $400,000 through a bank loan, Chapman said.

Collins announced Wednesday he plans to allocate $150,000 in county funds toward the project. That money will come from funds the county recovered from being overbilled for Medicaid services. The grant must be approved by the County Legislature.

Chapman said 15 members of his church also have pledged a total of $150,000 toward the project to match the county funds. He said that it took him two days to get commitments from congregants after Collins asked if the church could raise matching funds.

"I went to the congregation two days later on a Sunday morning, asked 15 people to give me $10,000," Chapman said. "By the time I came out of the pulpit, I had $90,000."

By the next morning, he said, he had pledges for the entire the $150,000.

Chapman said the market is just the latest step toward re-creating the neighborhood. St. John Baptist already has established 14 corporations — including nonprofit entities and a community development corporation — to handle the church's development projects.

In recent years, those projects have included a $2.8 million hospice facility, 28 townhouses and the Aloma D. Johnson Fruit Belt Community Charter School.

Chapman isn't stopping there. The church is moving forward with its redevelopment plans to build more townhouses and other development in the neighborhood as the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus expands nearby.

"This project is born out of that vision — that as the Medical Campus grows, that the Fruit Belt grows," Brown said. "As the Medical Campus grows, the East Side of Buffalo grows."

Chapman said he expects that the grocery store will generate 50 jobs and that some of those workers will come from a training program the church has developed to teach leadership, management and entrepreneurial skills to young men.

Twelve men in their 20s and 30s already have started the training program, said Michael J. Norwood, an adviser for the Fruit Belt/East Side Leadership and Business Academy.

"The goal of that group," Norwood said of the trainees, "is to create community wealth using biblical principles."