A loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, and hope for a better tomorrow.

Excuse me while I interrupt Dan's family feud with something not related to the farm bill. Just a few hours north and east of where we sit in Lyons, Nebraska is the small town of Truman, Minnesota. Population 1,259.

About a year and a half ago the town's grocery store closed - a move that can be devastating to a small community. A grocery store is a critical component of community infrastructure that every small town needs to prosper. With the closing of the grocery store more people leave town to do all of their shopping, elderly residents and others without access to reliable transportation find themselves with few or no options for grocery shopping, and the town becomes less attractive to those considering to move there.

Enter 17 year old and Truman High School student Nick Graham. It took Nick less than three months to purchase and reopen the shuttered grocery store in his home town. With enthusiasm, a vision for the future, a sense of purpose and a modest loan form a local economic development corporation Nick Graham became the new owner of the store before he even graduated from the local high school.

The Youngest Grocer In America

Rural main streets across America are struggling to survive, and the shuttering of a grocery store, drug store or hardware store is all too common. As Nick is demonstrating though, innovation, new energy, and the commitment of a new generation can help turn around the fate of a small town.

Read more about Nick here and here.

reply to video

You really have to give it to this young man...how many of us would have had the guts much less the ambition to buy a little grocery store in a day and time when big corporate stores seem to be taking over? God bless this young man and his town for supporting him. He is an inspiration to us all!!!!

He became a man the day he made plans to open the store!

Nick Graham is no longer a 17-yo boy. He became a man when he bought the closed grocery store. Now if the school can give him credit for what he's doing, it would sure help him out a lot. All I can say is that this young man has certainly put many people to shame for doing what needed to be done to keep his community growing. He's trying like crazy to break that downward spiral that so many small towns seem to be going through in the United States. It's a scary thought when you no longer have a grocery store in town, which is the backbone of the community. We have the same thing happening in Washington State. When I drive to the Tri-Cities (Kennewick, Richland, Pasco), I go through several small towns with no grocery stores and you can see the populations dropping. But they're building more homes, so they'll have to get a grocery store close by soon, so who knows. The farmers are selling their farmland to developers, which is why they're able to build those homes, and that means less people selling at the farmers' market, or finding products that you can grow here that you can't get else where, or are shipped in from Chile, Ecuador, Australia which defeats the purpose of locally grown foods. Anyway, here, here...to Nick Graham. What a man!!!!

i miss...

I miss the old grocery store we had in my neighborhood when I was growing up. Always knew the someone behind the counter. Not a stranger.

Hey man I thank you really

Hey man I thank you really for the post which narrates the spirit of the young boy. He is really an inspiration for us, as Angela said.

Great

It's very hard to find good information about that

Thanks for the sharing.

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