As senior pastor at the Foundation Christian Center, DeWayne McCoy feeds his community spiritually and emotionally. As CEO and founder of The After Market (sites.google.com/view/theaftermarketlv), he also feeds them physically.
McCoy opened the co-existing grocery store and food pantry at 4337 Las Vegas Blvd. North, next to the church, in 2023. He aimed to address food insecurity issues in the northeastern Las Vegas neighborhood, one of the city’s five food deserts, which was abandoned in 2016 by a longstanding Walmart Supercenter. McCoy says his model for a joint market and food pantry restores dignity to anyone seeking food assistance, whether they’re coming from the nearby Nellis Air Force Base or as far away as Pahrump.
“After watching people line up (at food pantries) when it’s 105 degrees outside, I started to try to think about a better way to do it,” says McCoy, whose food industry experience can be traced back to his first job at a Louisiana Piggly Wiggly. He most recently spent seven years managing the warehouse at Three Square Food Bank.
“Food pantries ... tend to scream poverty,” McCoy says, noting that many communities are hurting financially. “Here, you don’t have to line up. You can come when it’s convenient for you.”
Area resident and church member Angela Randle describes shopping at The After Market as “quick and easy.” Since many people in the neighborhood don’t have cars, and the only other stores nearby were convenience stores, she says a trip to the closest supermarket via bus used to eat up to four hours of the day.
“It’s like spending almost half the day just to go grocery shopping,” she says, adding, “It helps a lot of people, especially having that food bank right there ... and it’s a big help to actually have somewhere to go to get some groceries — even just the basics — instead of having to spend $7 at a gas station to buy a loaf of bread.”
In the 4,000-square-foot market, customers find an intimate but airy grocery store with fresh produce, meat, frozen foods, drinks, boxed foods, canned goods, and snacks, including brand names and generic products. Aisles and freezers are well-stocked with foods that meet the needs of individuals and families in the community, with signs in Spanish and English on the front wall.
While everyone enters through one door, customers check out in the market if they’re shopping, or exit through a separate door for the food pantry. Anyone can grab a reasonable ration of rice, beans, sauce, or whatever else is on the tall shelves — like a recent donation of frozen Pekin ducks, worth $30 each — for free. Prices in the market are comparable to, and sometimes slightly higher than, other grocery stores, but McCoy stresses that these costs are offset by the pantry.
“There is no store that can beat our prices when you look at the value of what you are getting for free, and you subtract that value from what you’ve purchased,” he says. “Everyone is welcome, whether you’re on a fixed income or make $100,000 a year. The economy is tight for everybody.”
The After Market is a self-sustaining concept, attributable to the retail side. Funding may dry up for nonprofits, but every dime spent at The After Market goes back into its operations.
“My ultimate goal was to not be a Band-Aid to a community that has a wound that needs stitches,” McCoy says. This model is meant to offer a permanent fix for food insecurity, “so now the community itself can begin to heal.”
In a recent TEDx talk, McCoy shared the benefits of compassion in commerce, a concept he hopes to spread by opening his market and food pantry model in other food deserts, eventually partnering with large grocery chains or the government.
“Honestly, I could see this model solving food insecurity in food deserts across the nation,” he says. “Food is a doorway ... the universal part of every community. The recipes may be different, but the meal itself is a core that keeps everything together.”
