The town of Plains, Kansas (population: 1150), lost their only supermarket in 2001. Now they are fighting to get one back for the town's survival. Easy to forget, but for many small places, "… a town's viability is measured by what has not yet closed. Losing a post office is considered the kiss of death. Losing a school can be a terminal diagnosis."

Jeanne Roberts, a resident of Plains, says, "A grocery store is the heart of the town. In small towns it's the social gathering place. And when you don't have that social gathering place and you're going outside, then you don't feel connected."

Update: As of January 2022, the town finally got a grocery store:

A southwest Kansas town has cause for celebration following two decades without a grocery store. Recently, a new store opened in the town of Plains. Needless to say, this was a long time coming.

“”A lot of people thought it was never going to happen, but we just kept plugging along and it finally did,” said Community Enhancement Foundation of Plains President Jeanne Roberts.

Grand Avenue Market is the first grocery store in Plains in more than 20 years. In efforts to get a store back to town, there were hardships along the way.

“We thought we had everything in place, and with the USDA loan you have to have a letter of credit from a bank,” Roberts said. “And we had a letter of credit in place, and then that bank got purchased by another bank and that bank chose not to honor the letter of credit.”

It took determinination to get financing in order to end the grocery drought in Plains.

“Ad we talked to 13 different banks and the 13th one went with us,” Roberts said.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Still, not once in the entire article is the loss of a church related to the death of a town. Are we present to the community in such a way that if we disappeared, it would be considered a death-blow for our neighborhood?