03 AUGUST 2020 - JEWELL, IOWA: Main Street in Jewell, IA. The only grocery store in Jewell, a small community in central Iowa, closed in 2019. It served four communities within a 20 mile radius of Jewell. Some of the town's residents created a cooperative to reopen the store. They sold shares to the co-op and held fundraisers through the spring. Organizers raised about $225,000 and bought the store, which had its "soft opening" July 8. The store celebrated its official reopening Monday August 3. Before the reopening, Jewell had been a "food desert" for seven months. The USDA defines rural food deserts as having at least 500 people in a census tract living 10 miles from a large grocery store or supermarket. There is a convenience store in Jewell, but it sells mostly heavily processed, unhealthy snack foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt. PHOTO BY JACK KURTZ
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