(multiple people talking)
- My name is Areli Barrera
and I've lived in Del Valle since 2018.
- My name is Gloria Vera-Bedolla
I live in the Hornsby Bend area in Forest Bluff.
And I have lived here since 2017.
- And my name is Patricia King.
I've lived in Del Valle for 25 years.
- My name is Cora Deary,
and I lived in Del Valle all my life.
- To go grocery shopping I drive about 30 minutes.
I have to make a choice.
I either have to go 30 minutes out to Bastrop
or 30 minutes out to Austin to go grocery shopping.
- My sister takes me to H-E-B on Riverside.
- Since we have one way in,
and one way out of this area.
It takes anywhere from 21 minutes when there's no traffic,
up to 40 minutes, one way.
- She have to drive me to the grocery store
because I don't have a vehicle to drive.
So she come and pick me up
and take me back home to the grocery store.
- To get to a grocery store
I'd have to drive around 25 miles
'cause I go to the grocery store in Bastrop.
- One of my major concerns is that
we live in a food desert.
- Near me there is a McDonald's, which I don't go to.
There's also a Sonic
and a couple food trucks that like are parked
in the convenience stores.
There's a JD's Supermarket
and that's about it.
- We have convenience stores
that are our only source for groceries in the area.
- Food options near me, there's not many.
We have the Dollar General.
We have a Sonic Drive-In.
And that's it.
- Out here you can just get a little stuff,
you know, like bread or sodas,
water and stuff like that, but it's not like H-E-B.
We need one out here. Seriously.
- When I go on a shopping trip,
I spend about maybe like a hundred dollars for groceries.
It's just me and my dogs. I buy things for us.
And then of course, if I'm also refilling on gas,
I spend whatever I need on gas as well.
- Our family, we typically spend about $300 and $350 about,
about so a month if we go to an H-E-B.
If we go to the stores that are around here, that will,
that number will grow exponentially.
- For the biggest barrier for me
in getting groceries is
actually just driving to the store.
Driving to the store is the biggest barrier for me.
- Sometimes my sister, she has somewhere else to go
and I probably need to go to the grocery store
and she can't take me, so I have to wait on her,
after she get through doing what she have to do.
- Definitely the drive.
I used to live in Austin, North Austin,
and the grocery store was like five minutes away.
So, you know, living out here in Del Valle
where I have to prepare for that drive.
It's a little bit different.
- Sometimes I don't even ask her
because I know she'll have something to do.
And then I wait 'til she get through
doing what she has to do,
and then she have to take me to the grocery store.
And I know that's hard on her too.
- But I would like to see in the way of food options
would be healthy foods.
Fruits, vegetables,
healthy meals.
- I definitely want to see like an H-E-B
for Del Valle, for the Del Valle community.
- I would like to have like a H-E-B out here
'cause it's more convenient and it's more cheaper
than these other stores around.
- I would love to see healthier food options in our area,
in the form of grocery stores that are open.
That give us an equitable access to food.
I understand that it's not gonna be free.
I understand that we have to pay for food,
but give us the option of accessing those foods.
I see folks that walk to the convenience stores
and they come back with a couple of little bags of groceries
from a convenience store.
That's not sustainable at all.
- And the reason they haven't come out here
because they feel that we don't have enough rooftops.
They're not coming out because we've been a food desert
for the past 35 to 40 years.
The U.S. government considered us a food desert.
And you think H-E-B would have came before now
to help the community if they cared about this community.