finally tonight one Paterson woman's Journey from her garage to Main Street we first brought you the story of Shana Manradge last year during her mission to feed her community City Health Inspectors shut her down but that didn't stop shanana from reaching her goal of opening a brick and mortar store Raven Santana visited the market to find out what kind of impact it's having for the people of Pateron went out to get a bag a box of cereal and it was $9.54 I spent about $20 driving around trying to find a decent price of cereal Shana manid says an unaffordable box of cereal was the inspiration for her business a better Market The Market located in Paterson on Rosa Parks Boulevard is a healthy fresh food store that officially opened its brick and mortar location on August 24th man Ridge who was born and raised in Paterson originally ran the market out of her garage until City Health Inspectors forced her to shut it down she has since spent the time fundraising to open a physical location and says the opening of this store is critical as the city is identified as one of 50 food deserts in a Statewide list by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority the four War where we are is part of that food desert and this is why I wanted to make sure my first store be in Paterson I had my friends coming in grabbing stuff testing it and if it didn't make Financial sense I am not going to be one of those people who price goug the community that I'm trying to empower man Ridge says 95% of the food and items she sells including toilet paper pancake mix and soap are from blackowned businesses but she says it's the prices that are a game changer pretty much everything in the supermarket we have a lot our store is 85% produce we have peppers and G and garlic and potatoes and beets and just Tomatoes just everything uh you can get a lemon for 40 you can get an orange for 50 cents a tomato for a dollar um our prices are about 50% less than the regular supermarkets our quality is Top Notch um because it is literally going from the farm straight to us since opening manid has served 400 people all of the produce inside her Market come from four different Farms three of them are blackowned including one located right across the street the name of the garden is greenacre community garden and why it's so special is for the people they free everything free except for my plants those I grow in my Greenhouse so I have to sell them to keep the garden going Deacon Willie Davis has been the owner of Green Acre community garden since 2014 Davis is really a oneman show tending to his garden and produce selling it and making sure he continues to keep up with demand for his community hor tomatoes lettuce cucumber cabbage collig grain okra oh my God all kind of herb different herb spices pepper bell peppers watermelon counter notes Davis says he's overjoyed and relieved to have a better Market as his new neighbor as he described their partnership as something bigger it's not about me and not about her it's about us what we can do together to build this greater because that market going to grow I going to help her make sure it grow and this you're going to grow more man Ridge says the biggest challenge is keeping up with demand as she's already had six deliveries in the past eight days I usually post on Facebook but now I actually created an app that people would just download the app and um or QR code you know click on the QR code and they will be able to get the notifications she is now hoping to receive a great to help with buying produce and hiring help she also wants to use the space to host workshops Community meetings and nutrition classes in addition to the market she is also working on a mobile unit to help bring affordable produce to seniors schools and other parts of the community who are in need the market is currently open Monday through Saturday 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Sundays 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. for NJ Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana [Music]