Sure, it would be nice if there were a co-op, or if Aldi would come, or Trader Joes, or, more generally as Joan Reisman-Brill hopes “… an organization that makes an effort to recognize and cater to our diverse community comes in.”

These might be classified as "bringing the mountain to Mohammed.”

Then there are the suggestions of a dedicated UCAT run to Walmart, heading over the hill to Hannaford, or further to BJ’s, or to a nearby ShopRite.

These are “Mohammed going to the mountain.”

Guess what. The issue is not about moving mountains, nor is it about moving people.

What I call (not “thinking big” here but) “Out-of-the-box” thinking is in order. Others call it “lateral thinking”, or “cognitive reframing”, or, without the psychobabble “challenging core assumptions”, or (with apologies to Lucy Muller), the time honored “more than one way to skin a cat.”

The issue is about moving groceries. And, fortuitously, moving groceries takes less money than moving mountains or people.

Walmart offers online shopping and delivery. Shoprite does too, out of Liberty to the Grahamsville area but not to Ellenville. They use Instacart for deliveries not handled by their own last-mile service. But I would think that they might be persuaded to go the extra few miles if there were several orders on one or two designated days per week, to a single location.

Aldi and Hannaford are Instacart stores. Adams may be, out of Kingston, but I think not from Middletown.

Peters does make deliveries to correctional facilities so they too might be persuaded to deliver to Ellenville.

To make this online option available to almost everyone who could not individually avail themselves of the services, the Village would have to come up with a central location from which to place and pick up orders, staffed on a limited schedule by, one would hope, volunteer or minimum wage helpers. There might be some assistance needed for those who have neither EBT, nor Debit/Credit cards in obtaining a Debit card through Webster/Santander Bank in town. Some computer assistance and receiving/conveying orders rounds out the service.

For the most part, the central drop off/pick up location would (likely) enable Shoprite and Peters to expand their non-Instacart delivery service. If there is really a demand for the service, the one-point regularly scheduled order delivery should be an inducement.

For those who are contemplating driving, home delivery might be a preferable choice for the majority of grocery and dairy shopping. Giving up looking at the produce offerings or the packaged meats might be hard, but on the other hand, online curbs “impulse” buying, time, travel, and the omni-present candy offerings at checkout.

Bob Prener

Grahamsville