Working to get more fruits and vegetables in corner stores

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One way health advocates are working to make more nutritious food available in neighborhoods without easy access to supermarkets is by trying to get more fruits and vegetables into corner stores. A new website, Market Makeovers, has launched to guide people who might like to organize such a project.

Market Makeovers features the work of some high school students in South Los Angeles who have been working on three stores in their neighborhood as case studies.

For two years, South L.A. Healthy Eating Active Communities Initiative and Public Matters have worked with the students from the Accelerated School. The initiative, funded by the California Endowment, is an effort to reduce childhood diabetes and obesity. Public Matters is a California-based group of artists, educators and media professionals working on neighborhood-based projects.

-- Mary MacVean

(Photo: Jessica Orellana, left, and Britanni Marie Dighero, are making a video about their makeover project. Photo by Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times)