Wards 7 and 8 have more than 150,000 residents, and only three of the city’s 49 grocery stores. (For comparison, Ward 7 has just as many grocery stores—two—as a 0.1 mile stretch of Columbia Heights.)

Even as a new grocery store, Good Food Markets, is slated to open in the fall in Ward 8, some residents are working to create more choices for residents seeking healthy eating options.

The Community Grocery Cooperative is restructuring as it continues its bid to launch a food co-op east of the river, meaning a grocery store controlled and maintained by people who pay membership dues. Because co-ops aren’t designed to turn a profit, they can often keep food prices lower than grocery stores, and members decide how to stock the store. While co-ops have gotten a reputation for catering to a high-end clientele, the model has worked in other areas, including northeast Greensboro, North Carolina, that chain groceries avoided.

“Our mission is to provide accessible, affordable, sustainable, healthy food for the communities that don’t have good access to grocery stores,” says Clarice Manning, a member of the Community Grocery Cooperative and a lifelong Ward 7 resident. “If you can’t walk to your grocery store or you have to travel by bus over 50 miles to get to a place where you would like to shop for good food or necessities, you shouldn’t have to do that.”

About 11 percent of D.C. is considered a food desert, meaning a place without access to affordable, healthy foods, and more than three-quarters of the city’s food deserts are in wards 7 and 8, per the D.C. Policy Center. This lack of healthy food is more than an inconvenience—it’s a public health issue that can lead to increased rates of obesity and diabetes. It’s made more tricky by the fact that food deserts generally occur in low-income areas.

But rather than depend on grocery store companies to solve the problem, Manning says that “the co-op will be a way for residents to really have a sustainable store in their neighborhood that they can control and doesn’t just up and leave. I don’t know if people remember—there used to be Murry’s everywhere, and then they just disappeared, and then the whole thing about Walmart coming east of the river, which didn’t happen.”

While she welcomes the forthcoming Good Food Markets in Ward 8, she wonders about how expensive food will be there. “It’s good that there are other stores but at the same time, there’s that question of, okay is it really for us, the residents who’ve been living here for years, or is it for the new people that are coming here?” Manning says. “We’re not discriminating against new residents, but we just want to make sure that there’s something that’s going to be affordable and that makes sense for residents who have already been living here.”

CGC wants to establish its first store in Ward 8, and then expand to Ward 7, followed by stores in other parts of the city with food deserts, says Manning.

Still, the co-op has a long way to go before opening its doors. There are currently about a dozen members, Manning says. The Community Grocery Cooperative has a goal of 300 members, reports UrbanTurf, which is when the co-op can start building out its boards and committees. Manning says that 22 people came out to a meeting about the co-op this past weekend, and a handful of them signed up as members on the spot. The next meeting for CGC is slated for May 18 at 4 p.m. at the We Act Radio station.

Most of the money to create the co-op will come from membership dues, says Manning, though CGC is also looking at grants and fundraisers as ways to raise capital. (A lifetime membership will cost a one-time fee of $100, per UrbanTurf.) Manning says that people can help by spreading the word, and by getting involved in the development process.

The question of a timeline hinges largely on how quickly the co-op can raise money, says Manning. “It really depends on how quickly people in D.C. would like to see the store open.”