Community Foods Market Mural

It all started when…

Community Foods Market opened its doors in 2019 after a decade-long effort to address issues of inequitable food access in West Oakland. Unfortunately, the Market closed in February
2022 due to underinvestment and downtrending pandemic revenue. Local lender and nonprofit support organization Community Vision controls the space, and we are in conversation with them and others in the neighborhood to ensure the now-empty store will continue to serve the
community’s food security needs.

The design for the Community Foods Mural honors Mary Ann Wright, known as Mother Wright, who fed hungry East Bay residents for almost three decades. She started in 1983, feeding the poor and homeless one meal a week with as much food as she could afford with her Social Security check. Her heartfelt act grew to feed 450 people a day, and became the Mother Mary Ann Wright Foundation, where Mother Wright continued working well into her eighties. The mural will also pay tribute to the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program, which began at St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland in January 1969. The Free Breakfast Program helped focus national attention on the urgent need to give poor children nutritious meals so they could be successful in school.

This design reflects the activist spirit and history of West Oakland, and the ongoing struggle for food justice in BIPOC communities and disenfranchised neighborhoods. This mural will add to the series of AHC-led, community-engaged murals along the San Pablo Avenue corridor: The Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project.

Project Location: 3105 San Pablo Avenue, Oakland, CA 94608

Total Project Cost: $20,000.00

Dates: 2/15/2021 - 4/30/2022

Project Partners: Attitudinal Healing Connection, East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation