PHILADELPHIA -- First Lady Michelle Obama, accompanied by U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to promote her “Let’s Move” campaign to reduce childhood obesity, visited The Fresh Grocer at Progress Plaza on Friday afternoon.
The “Let’s Move” campaign focuses on helping consumers make better food choices, providing healthier food in schools, promoting physical activity among children, and increasing access to healthy food. The White House's Healthy Food Financing initiative to expand access to healthy foods in underserved areas is modeled after the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, a community revitalization program designed to increase the number of supermarkets in lower-income areas across the state.
"What Pennsylvania has shown us is, if we provide the right incentives, people will invest in these neighborhoods," Obama said. "We want to replicate your success in Pennsylvania all over America."
The $15 million Fresh Grocer at Progress Plaza that Michelle Obama toured on Friday was financed in part by funding from the state Fresh Food Financing Initiative as well as by other city, state and federal support. Before the new Fresh Grocer opened in December, the North Philadelphia neighborhood where the store now stands was without a supermarket for over a decade.
"This is one of the proudest moments of my life to have the first lady standing behind my mission," said Patrick J. Burns, president and chief executive of The Fresh Grocer.
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