Healthy Food for All! ATL’s Municipal-Powered Grocery
Join Just Communities for a live conversation on how Mayor Dickens’ administration is translating principles into practice with the opening of the city’s first municipal-backed grocery store. Learn how your city can boost access to healthy food in underserved areas through this public-private innovation.
Overview
Healthy communities must have healthy food. Yet many cities still have food deserts due to long-standing disinvestment.
For decades, access to healthy food evaded Atlanta’s south side communities. When one national grocery chain after another declined to serve Atlanta’s majority- Black population, the City rose to the challenge.
Azalea Fresh Market isn’t just another grocery. In these times of federal funding cuts and corporate price gouging, It’s a testament to the power of cities to save themselves.
What You Will Learn
Participants will explore:
How municipal leadership can address food deserts through structural intervention.
How the Azalea Fresh Market model was developed.
How public-private partnerships can expand food access.
Lessons that other cities apply to strengthen community health and economic resilience.
About the Speaker
Katie Molla serves as Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Andre Dickens in the City of Atlanta, where she oversees initiatives impacting the safety, well-being, and flourishing of more than 500,000 residents.
Katie brings experience in nonprofit consulting and federal policy to her work advancing equitable municipal leadership.
Meet the Faculty
Tsedey Betru
Tsedey is the Director of Just Communities at the Partnership for Southern Equity. Originally from Ethiopia, Tsedey’s experiences immigrating to the U.S. and growing up in Memphis, TN, have shaped and informed her 20-year career advancing racial equity in community and economic development.
She started her career as a community organizer for the National Voting Rights Institute and the 7th St. Community Improvement Initiative in Oakland, CA. After completing her graduate studies in urban policy analysis and nonprofit management, Tsedey worked at PolicyLink and at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in NYC before becoming the Vice President of Community LIFT in Memphis, TN.
More recently, she has moved into economic development and philanthropic advising, working as the Manager of Community Affairs & Strategic Initiatives for Invest Atlanta, as an economic development advisor to Memphis Mayor Wharton, and a philanthropic advisor to the Estee Lauder Charitable Foundation, Waverley Street Foundation, and Gates Foundation.
Tsedey currently serves on the City of Atlanta’s Urban Design Commission, the Atlanta BeltLine Public Arts Advisory, and raises funds for the African Diasporic Arts Museum of Atlanta.