AG announced it would close Vista Foods in March, leaving Richford customers who didn’t have reliable transportation with the choice of two gas-station convenience stores and a Dollar Store as their food shopping options. “They did a wonderful job,” said Parsons.īut a corporate change at the New Hampshire-based Associated Grocers put the store in peril once again. Associated Grocers operated it for three years. When he decided to stop, his distributor, Associated Grocers, had recently decided to make a foray into retail, and stepped in in 2017. A second managed to stay open for 10 years. “You have to bum a ride with a neighbor or wait til a relative is going to town.”Ī private owner opened a store in the Notch building after 2007, but went out of business. “If you are living on a limited income, you don’t have access to transportation, you are really kind of stuck,” he said. With nearly no public transportation to rely on, said Ostermeyer, residents don’t have a good way to reach larger stores in places like St. The NOTCH organizers were focused then on adding more medical services, such as a dental clinic that went into the building’s fourth floor.īut they knew that creating a source of affordable groceries, including fresh fruit and vegetables, was critical to their health mission. The third floor is occupied by affordable housing.Īt that time, Richford had no full-size grocery store, although there were smaller stores in town where residents could buy staples.
FQHCs receive federal money to provide primary care services in underserved areas Vermont has several of them.Ī half-dozen years later, the organizers secured federal, state and local support to renovate a 44,000-square-foot former furniture factory in downtown Richford and move the clinic - by then renamed NOTCH - there in 2007. With others, she secured funding to create a federally qualified health center in 2002 in an old house. Parsons, an Enosburg native, started out on the board of the Richford Health Center and became its leader in 2000. The town also recently lost its only remaining bank when TD Bank moved out, said Parsons, and the historic brick bank building is now on sale for $225,000. “A couple of Canadian doctors came down doctors came and went,” said Pam Parsons, now executive director of the NOTCH. A Help Wanted sign hung on the house for years. In the 1960s, the town fixed up a donated downtown home to house the clinic. Richford residents started trying more than half a century ago to attract a doctor to town. The Census says per capita annual income in Richford was about $20,000 in 2018, about half the number for the Burlington-South Burlington metro area, and about three-fifths of the $33,238 Vermont per capita. The town, located on the Canadian border, has a population of about 1,600, and 15% of residents live below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Richford has long struggled with higher-than-average poverty rates, lower incomes, lower home values, lower educational attainment and other indicators. “Research confirms that helping people with weight management has a direct connection to their health and wellbeing and health care costs.” “It might be something as simple as a bathing suit to get in the pool,” said Beth Tanzman, executive director of the Blueprint for Health program. The NOTCH serves 15,000 patients per year and operates clinics in several other Franklin County towns.īlueprint for Health provides money to federally qualified health centers to help patients with transportation, nutrition and fitness classes, and other aspects of healthy living. Albans, Richford residents have often had to travel long distances to reach work, groceries and health care.Ī solution to some of the health access problems arrived in 2002 with the establishment of the Northern Tier Center for Health, or NOTCH, a not-for-profit health center that provides family medicine, behavioral health, a pharmacy, a lab, and dental services. RICHFORD - Living 30 miles from the larger hubs of Newport, Morrisville, or St. Pam Parsons, longtime executive director of the Northern Tier Center for Health, holds a sign that hung for decades at a donated home in Richford's downtown. It now has 17 employees and 2,400 grocery transactions each week. In June, NOTCH started operating Vista Foods, a grocery store that was slated to close. This 44,000-square-foot former furniture factory in downtown Richford was renovated to house NOTCH headquarters, some of its medical and dental offices, affordable housing, and Vista Foods. Clockwise from top right: Vista Foods manager Mitchell Johnson, at the cash register, has been teaching NOTCH leaders how the grocery business operates.
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