Our Mission

A healthy community where everyone has access to quality, nutritious, healthy food can be achieved through a synergistic relationship between stores and the communities they serve. Corner stores/community markets can serve as an important conduit for communities to get healthy products, provide information that promotes health and well-being, and for facilitating community empowerment.

What do we do?

We dismantle the barriers that corner store owners face when acquiring healthy products for their customers.

Establish alternative food infrastructure

We establish the food supply-chain infrastructure that small immigrant businesses need to access economies of scale.

Invest in communities of color

We partner with Resident Leaders to disseminate financial support to residents for food purchases at nearby corner stores

Produce research on local food systems

We synthesize the stories of success and failure across the local and regional food supply chain, especially from the perspective of immigrant business owners. More research coming soon.

Our History

Saba started as a community organizing effort by Arab-American and Muslim corner store owners in Oakland. We advocated for an equitable use of Oakland’s soda tax revenues during the city’s 2019 budget cycle.

Since Oakland’s 120 corner stores operate in neighborhoods with the lowest access to healthy foods, corner store owners offered to transition their stores into health food stores, if the City invests its soda tax revenues into dismantling the barriers they face in the healthy foods supply chain.

We won an initial allocation of $200k, which was the seed that helped us grow into the organization we are today.

Saba’s 2020 Celebration

120 Corner Stores in Oakland participated in our advocacy

Our Team

Lina Ghanem

Director and Founder
Lina@sabagrocers.org

Dhaifallah Dhaifallah​

Manager and Co-Founder
Dhaifallah@sabagrocers.org

Njoube Dugas

Operations Manager
Njoube@sabagrocers.org

Rae Peres

Office Manager
Rae@sabagrocers.org

Jiyeon Choi

Warehouse Lead
Jiyeon@sabagrocers.org

Médyna Harfouche

Project Manager
Médyna@sabagrocers.org

Our Board

Annie Campell Washington​

Dean of Students, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

Nina Ichikawa

Executive Director, Berkeley Food Institute

Francis Calpotura

Executive Director, In-Advance

Chelsea Charles

Owner, One Stop Market

Farouq AlAwdi

Co-owner, Two Star Market

Andre Isler

Manager, Isler’s Liquor

Barbara Lopez

Housing Policy Director, Tenants & Owners Development Corporation

Deaa Ahmad

Owner, Lee’s Stores

Horea Alroani

Director, Yemeni-American Radio

Shaik Mohamed Mugali

Imam of Masjid AlSalam, West Oakland