With a recent grocery store opening, Salvation Army is beginning a program to combat food deserts, communities without meaningful and close access to fresh produce and meats. Food deserts often have substantial poverty levels. The communities are often of-color and reflect larger national food security problems.

As the Huffington Post reported, the Baltimore store, constructed on a revamped Salvation Army warehouse property, is expected to be the first of several more stores of its kind.

DMG Foods, named for its organizational promise to do the most good, provides Baltimore residents with healthy, inexpensive food, nutrition advice, meal plans and job training at this new location. The store also includes a deli and an on-site butcher.

Building on this collaboration, Maryland’s Food Bank provides meals and salads to the store. The new store is also in proximity to an elementary school. “The idea is to strengthen the family table,” Hogg said. “We want to do more than just sell groceries.”

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh cut the ribbon at the store’s opening ceremony and celebrated Salvation Army for this work. “This serves as a beacon for the rest of this community. If we can do this here, we can do this in other parts of the city,” she said.

Hogg told the Huffington Post that funds made by the grocery store will be donated to Catherine’s Cottage, a Salvation Army-operated facility that supports human trafficking survivors.