As part of its On the Ground Community Newsroom series in Walnut Hills, Soapbox Cincinnati has implemented a new two-way communication tool called GroundSource for the residents of Walnut Hills as a way to activate the community and gather information and opinions directly from those in the neighborhood.

Since March 2017, Walnut Hills has been without a local grocery store. This dramatically affects residents who lack transportation to venture to other neighborhoods for their groceries. Soapbox will use GroundSource to hold text conversations with Walnut Hills residents to discuss the topic of neighborhood food access and find out where, how, and what groceries local residents are purchasing.

The data gathered from these text conversations will be shared with local Walnut Hills civic organizations such as the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation (WHRF) to help improve the food access situation for residents. WHRF is working to meet the food insecurity issue head-on with short-term solutions and needs additional input from the neighborhood.

To enter the conversation, Walnut Hills residents just need to text the keyword HELLO to 513-230-6899. They will then receive a series of questions via text. Some questions are about demographics and some are related food purchases and shopping trips.

For more information on GroundSource, visit www.groundsource.co. For more information on Soapbox Cincinnati’s On the Ground Community Newsroom Series in Walnut Hills, click here: https://www.soapboxmedia.com/series/on-the-ground.aspx.