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The Community Fridge organized a food drive Sunday at 257 E. Ferry St. near Jefferson Avenue, to help families affected by the mass shooting at Tops on Saturday. Other agencies are also helping to fill the void as the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue remains closed.
When a white supremacist gunman targeted the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue Saturday, he not only killed 10 people and wounded three others, he shut down the sole “oasis” in a food desert that’s now in need of sustenance, community leaders said Monday.
But almost as soon as the tragedy unfolded, local advocates, Western New York’s emergency food network, corporate donors, churches and Tops itself began mobilizing to make sure no one in the predominantly Black community goes hungry while the store is closed.
Starting at 2 p.m. Monday, the Resource Council of WNY and Feedmore WNY began holding daily food distributions of emergency food at the Resource Council, 347 E. Ferry St. The practice will continue from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. through May 27, at which point officials will reassess the need, said the Rev. Terry King, CEO of Saving Grace Ministries and board chair of the Resource Council.
“We are seeing a tremendous response to the tragedy at the Jefferson Avenue Tops and we will be distributing food to the community, sponsored in part by Tops,” King said. “We talk about being ‘the City of Good Neighbors,’ and this is that response.”
Tops has offered to send refrigerated food trucks daily and companies and individuals are donating pallets of food and personal care items to assist the effort, King said.
People wanting to donate can bring shelf-stable food and personal care items like toilet paper and diapers to the Feedmore warehouse at 91 Holt St., which can store large quantities and keep the Resource Center supplied daily.
Local pastors, the Erie County Department of Mental Health and the Red Cross also will maintain a presence at the 347 E. Ferry location to offer crisis counseling and comfort care to a community that is grieving as well as in need of nearby places to get basic staples, said the Rev. James Giles of Back to Basics Ministries.
The Red Cross and Masten District Common Council Member Ulysees O. Wingo’s office are coordinating volunteers to assist with the food distribution. Monetary donations can be made via feedmorewny.org or to the Resource Council.
At the kickoff of the outreach effort Monday, Wingo described the Jefferson Avenue Tops as a town square for the neighborhood as well as its only nearby source of fresh, nutritious food. The store opened in 2003 in response to calls from residents and local officials to bring a supermarket to the area.
“This Tops is more than a grocery store, it was an oasis in this food desert and also, if you were to walk into this store you would most likely see someone you knew,” he said. “It was a community center that, if you came in to buy a loaf of bread you would spend 15 minutes because you ran into three or four people you know. It had that barbershop, salon kind of feel.”
Catherine Roberts, president of the Resource Council of WNY, said that Buffalo may now be on the map as the target of a horrific hate crime, but Buffalo is responding with love.
“Our community is grieving, but our community truly is the city of good neighbors and we have shown up for each other in ways that are incredible,” she said. “We are Buffalo strong.”
Besides the Resource Center, a coalition of community groups plans to be on site near the Jefferson Avenue Tops, alongside the parking lot of the Family Dollar next door, grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and handing out water as long as the Tops remains closed, said George Johnson, president of Buffalo United Front.
“The love we have in this community is stronger than what transpired here,” Johnson said. “A lot of people use this supermarket because it’s in close range and they can walk, because a lot of people don’t have transportation. So we want people to know that we are here for them and we are going to be here until that Tops reopens or they build a new one."
Buffalo Community Fridge, which held a food giveaway on Sunday, also is keeping its Fridge and food pantry at 247 E. Ferry St. stocked with free food and items like toilet paper around the clock to meet the need.
Tops is also providing free shuttle bus service from Jefferson Avenue and Kingsley Street to its store on Elmwood Avenue to assist people who need to go grocery shopping or fill their prescriptions. The buses will be running from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.
Giles said community advocates and leaders will continue to seek ways to address needs exacerbated by the trauma of the racially motivated mass shooting that turned their source of daily supplies into a crime scene.
"People are afraid to go shopping, so we will be saturating the community and going to homes and residences to address the emotional needs," Giles said.
Roberts said she will be working with Giles to form volunteer teams to deliver food to people who can't get out to the shuttle or distribution sites.
"We want to make sure that the spirit of what Tops on Jefferson means to us continues until they reopen," she said.
The smart way to start your day. We sift through all the news to give you a concise, informative look at the top headlines and must-read stories every weekday.
I'm the new Higher Education reporter on The Buffalo News business enterprise team. I previously worked at The Post-Standard/Syracuse.com and Syracuse's Rosamond Gifford Zoo. I'm a Rochester native with family in Buffalo. Email me at jgramza@buffnews.com.
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A regionwide effort has gained unstoppable traction. Its mission: to help those most affected by the Tops attack heal and find security, to restore and continue the revitalization of the surrounding neighborhood, and – most important – to change a narrative filled with despair to one of hope and resilience.
The decision to go from supplying food 84 hours a week to eight came as a surprise to the Resource Council, which has been seeing an average of 1,100 people a day coming to its site to receive milk, juice and produce from a Tops refrigerated truck and bags of donated food and personal items supplied by FeedMore and other community supporters.
The Community Fridge organized a food drive Sunday at 257 E. Ferry St. near Jefferson Avenue, to help families affected by the mass shooting at Tops on Saturday. Other agencies are also helping to fill the void as the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue remains closed.
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