By Biba Adams, Staff Writer and Report for America corps member
After the community-owned Detroit People’s Food Co-Op shared that changing consumer habits, power outages, and other factors have made it harder to keep their shelves stocked, the city turned out en masse to show support.
Social media has been flooded with assistance from across the city. On Sunday, the store hosted its 1st Community Shopping Day and podcaster Deante Kyle of the Grits and Eggs Podcast purchased $2,500 in gift cards and helped shoppers in line receive free groceries.
On Saturday, October 10, 2026, the BLK GRL Conglomerate, a Detroit-based nonprofit that advances the wellness, literacy, and economic power of Black girls and women is hosting a “Black Girl Cash Mob,” encouraging 100 Black women to spend $20 at Detroit People’s Food Co-Op and to become member-owners.
“We talk about our spending power,” they wrote on Instagram, “We talk about Saturday, we are using it on purpose.” They add, “100 Black women. One afternoon. One grocery store we can actually own. This is not a charity case. It’s an investment and we’re the investors.”
BLK GRL Conglomerate regularly hosts culturally responsive programming in healing, storytelling, and entrepreneurship building the conditions for long-term thriving, not just crisis response.
Detroit People’s Food Co-Op opened two years ago as a Black-led and community-owned grocery cooperative. The co-op’s purpose is to provide improved access to healthy food and food education to Detroit residents. Meeting the needs of the community is achieved through the democratic control of the co-op by its member/owners.
The mission is:
Assuring Member access to the goods, services, and facilities of the Co-op
Educating the community about nutrition and sustainability
Benefiting the community by supporting local businesses
Improving community access to fresh and healthy food
However, Lenay Gilbert-Williams, president of Detroit People’s Food Co-op, told WXYZ that the store has been “constantly in a game of having to pull from reserves or our saving account to fill the gap that sales does not.”
Gilbert-Williams did stress that the store is not in danger of closing.
“When sales are lower in any given week, that gives us less money to spend on inventory the following week,” Gilbert-Williams said. She added that fewer products on shelves can create another challenge by giving shoppers fewer options and limiting support for local suppliers. “This gives them less of a selection; this gives less of an opportunity to support the circular economy that we’re creating,” Gilbert-Williams said.
In September, the Co-Op launched he Mframadan Campaign to “significantly increase sales to become sustainable.”
Mframadan is one of many Adinkra symbols used by the Akan peoples of Ghana, West Africa. The meaning of the symbol translates into English as “a house built to withstand windy and treacherous conditions.”
1) Become a member/owner of Detroit People’s Food Co-opand encourage three friends to do the same. We are seeking to recruit 500 new member/owners.
2) Shop at Detroit People’s Food Co-op regularly. If you are already a shopper, and are able, increase your purchase amount by an additional $10 each time you shop. If you have been intending to shop at DPFC and have not yet done so, now is the time! We need your support!
3) For those who are able to invest $1,000 or more, contact us at invest@detroitpeoplesfoodcoop.com about becoming an investor in our Non-Voting Investment Certificate Program.
4) Schedule an opportunity for a DPFC rep to talk with your church, block club, fraternity, sorority, social club, or community organization about the Co-op’s community-ownership model by emailing moc@detroitpeoplesfoodcoop.com
5) Donate to our online fundraiser at https://gofund.me/e32302e6d
The Mframadan Campaign runs from September 8 – November 30, 2026.
You can reach Biba at Biba.Adams@MIChronicle.com