What began as a conversation after a neighborhood meeting became an unexpected partnership between the Grant Street Community and Duke University's Edible Atlas Lab—and just four months later, that collaboration was featured in The New York Times. This is the story behind the headlines, and why our neighbors' decades-long vision for a grocery store in the historic Hayti District remains at the center of it all.

National attention was never the goal. Our hope is that this moment helps amplify what residents have been advocating for all along: healthy food access, equitable investment, and a future shaped by the people who have faithfully called Hayti home for generations.

Some stories take generations to come together. This is the story of how Kendall and Erin Dooley's journey of tracing their family's Great Migration history led them to Durham's historic Hayti District, where they met the Grant Street Ladies and Monument of Faith Church—neighbors whose stories, commitment, and love for place have shaped a shared vision for the future.

“In the last BLK reflection,  Dr. Gould named the communal grief and sense of urgency honoring the many civil rights leaders who have recently passed.  And just a day after her newsletter posted, we lost another icon this past Friday in Dr. John Perkins.  Dr. Perkins voice and work was formational for me over many years as he was for many.

Before hearing of this latest passing, I attended a “People, Power and Change” meeting with local community leaders to practice sharing our public narrative stories.  The stories for why we do what we do, the moments in time that called us into our vocation.  The focus was on finding our stories for when situations and life circumstances brought us onto a new path.”

Sometimes, I feel like the walls are caving in. It gets harder to breathe—frustrated and irritated and frustrated and irritated—an endless cycle of frustration and irritation. Frustrated because the people who have the resources to solve these problems in our neighborhood, for some reason, won’t share them. Frustrated because the people you think should be giving to this work aren’t, or haven’t, or are hoarding and holding on. When you know…