ROCK ISLAND, Illinois - It's a first for Rock Island and long overdue. A grocery store is coming to the downtown area and it follows a huge movement with organic foods.
Healthy Harvest is much more than a business to its owner Chad Summers.
The store is under construction right now and will be the first grocery store in downtown Rock Island and will feature only organic food. It all started 10 years ago after Summers was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.
"It was just really depressing and I got sick of being the victim so I just tried to researched everything I could, started going to the doctors the medicines worked for a second and then they didn`t work anymore," said Summers.
He decided to change his eating habits.
"After about six months it started to clear up and I got off all my medication," said Summers.
Summer isn't the only one wanting to eat healthier, more and more organic stores have popped up across the county.
"This just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger," said Summers.
The proof can be found in the Quad Cities. Davenport is expecting two organic stores to open. Construction has started on Kimberly Road where Incredible Pizza used to be, transforming it into Fresh Thyme.
On 53rd Street crews have begun to dig up dirt for the new store Natural Grocer.
"I think people are just sick and tired of being sick and tired," said Summers.
Summers says organic food has spread through word of mouth and more customers want healthier food.
"We are what we eat we used to hear that a lot as a kid but it`s so true the more I learned about nutrition the more that it made perfect sense," said Summers.
He's hoping organic food will change someone's life, like it changed his.
"I just want to help as many people as I can," said Summers.