Healthy Corner
Store #4 Debuts

In the quarter century since he has owned his little store in West River, Elias Jaser has sold many oranges and bananas, but they have never before been displayed so beautifully, or prominently.

That was the opinion rendered by the owner of the George Street Deli as his West River convenience store debuted Monday afternoon as the fourth ​“New Haven Healthy Corner Store.”

That designation means that Jaser has permitted the folks from the city’s Health Department and the Yale School of Public Health to provide him with spiffy signs and display cases to make those healthful alternatives to junk food more attractive than ever.

That was the verdict of Joandrea Pecunia, who has been coming to the George Street Deli, near the square at Norton Street, for at least 10 years. Normally she goes down to Stop & Shop to get produce.

“Now I don’t have to go,” she said as she added a healthy bunch of almost-ripe bananas to her regular purchases.

On Monday, Jaser, along with kids from Common Ground High School’s environmental justice class, joined West River activist Stacy Spell to cut the ribbon on the fourth ​“healthy corner store.”

Alycia Santilli of the Yale School of Public Health’s Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE) program, which launched the initiative last year, reported that the other three healthy corner stores are doing well.

They are the Congress Market in the Hill, near the John Daniels School; Adams Deli on Edgewood, near the Troup School; and the Clinton Food Center near the Clinton School in Fair Haven.

Click here and here to read stories about those stores.

Picking a store near a school is obviously in the plan, said Santilli. The George Street Market is only several blocks from the Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet School.

What’s new about this opening is that students from Common Ground High School have participated in canvassing the area to alert neighbors to the new healthful offerings.

Later this week, the high-schoolers will be making presentations to their younger peers at Barnard.

As the sun set Monday and customers like Michael Kusher dropped by from the Berger Apartments across the street to try the tasty fruit-kebabs (he took two; one for himself, and one for his girlfriend), Santilli said that marketing, presentation, and emphasizing the good alternatives is a big part of the effort.

Jaser has had to make no outlay of money to become part of the program. He was able to choose one of three displays for his fruit that the CARE people offered.

In the past, he said, he kept the fruit inside the coolers, at knee level.

The tropical-style display that he chose is now front-and-center in the first aisle of his store. You can’t miss it.

The baskets, at a jaunty angle, practically shout: I’m fresh and good looking. Try me!

In addition to the signs and displays, the CARE program offers storeowners like Jaser financial incentives to participate. They include up to a $500 ​“take-back” if he buys something and it doesn’t sell; and up to a $1,000 in redeemable coupons.

Common Ground students Jackie Failla, Joel Ortiz, and Miranda Bailey-Russomano were among more than a dozen kids who distributed the coupons about the neighborhood in the run-up to the opening.

Failla said she knocked on many, many doors. Bailey-Russomano wrote a little cookbook with healthful recipes that she was distributing to customers as they parked in the George Street Market’s small parking lot and went in to sample the new fare.

On their way in, visitors also were offered the fruit-kebabs and cinnamon-sprinkled apple wedges.

After the ribbon-cutting, Stacey Spell said, ​“This reinforces that West River is a green neighborhood. We’re going to continue to build it.”

The storeowner said, in a business-like tone: ​“I appreciate. I hope it works. We’ll push it.”

Santilli said Jaser’s establishment was chosen in part because he keeps it so clean and tidy. ​“The nicer the store, the chances are better that there is participation,” she said.