CommonSpirit Health Grocery Store

In 2022, Mercy Brown Bag Program opened the CommonSpirit Health Grocery Store on the campus of Mercy Retirement & Care Center in the Fruitvale District of Oakland, CA. The store was designed to promote socialization for Brown Bag older adults and to provide their recipients with more options and opportunity of choice in the food items they take home.

Originally only meant to serve a few hundred people, the store has grown to serve over 1,200 each month within its first year of its inception. Open 5 days a week, the flexible operating hours of the Fruitvale store gives recipients further agency to pick up their free groceries on dates that are more convenient for them and their needs.