Inside, Carey Morales, 29, stands behind the cash register ready to ring up everything from laundry detergent to artisan pocket knives and chat with customers about the recent moisture.
During a break in the steady stream of customers Thursday, Morales said Grover, a small town surrounded by open space, is her dream.
“We moved here with a couple thousand dollars and a prayer that we would find a job,” she said.
At first, a job didn’t come. Morales and her husband were living on about $460 per month to support their three children, ages 9, 4 and 2, when they moved from Fort Collins last summer.
For a while, food stamps were a must, Morales said. Since then, she got the job at the market and her husband got a job working at a water-treatment plant near town.
But, she said, she hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to fall on hard times, especially living in a place where almost everything she needed was at least 26 miles away in the closest city, Briggsdale.
Nonprofits, businesses and government officials have long struggled with how to reach those who live in the outer limits of Weld County, questioning whether enough people could benefit from their services to outweigh the costs of traversing a 4,000-square-mile county.
According to the U.S. Census, more than 23 percent of families who live in Grover had incomes in the last year that fell below federal poverty guidelines.
In Greeley, it’s more than 15 percent.
Ault, Keenesburg and Fort Lupton similarly have U.S. Census data comparable to Greeley, with 14.8, 15.1 and 14.7 percent of families with poverty-level incomes in the past year.
Still, as the Weld County seat and most populous city in the county, it makes sense to base services out of Greeley, community leaders say. Last year, 11,916 cases from Greeley or Evans passed through Weld County Human Services, compared to 25 out of Grover or 122 out of Keenesburg.
Weld officials and nonprofits agree that more should be done to offer geographically comprehensive services to low-income residents in the county, but many aren’t sure where to start, and others are just beginning to find a model that works.
In some cases, the solution still may not be to bring services to the New Raymers and the Pierces of Weld. In southwest Weld County, small towns are doing better with a local system that coordinates with Greeley-based entities, while groups such as the Weld Food Bank are trying a hybrid of local and traveling services.
Most residents of Grover realize they aren’t going to have access to some of the same services as Greeley without driving 56 miles for it, Grover Mayor Matt Ososky said.
But those in the nonprofit world say those who fall into poverty don’t get to choose where it happens, and those who live on fixed incomes in rural areas face a number of obstacles that don’t exist in the city, such as lack of transportation and Internet access.
In Grover, Morales said, the town is a “small, closely-knit community,” where 15 people pull to the side of the road if you get a flat tire.
When she and her family were struggling last December, Morales said she found a white piece of paper on her car windshield. Folded inside was a $50 bill, the first of several anonymous monetary gifts from Morales’ neighbors to be sure that her family could still celebrate Christmas.
That’s when Morales said she began to believe in karma, and it’s part of why she loves her town.
“If you’re going to move, move to Grover,” she says with a smile from behind her cash register.
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