Our Philosophy 

Few things are more essential in life; evoke more joy, sorrow and every emotion in between, than food.  Yet for something so essential, so well known, yet mysterious, so regarded yet so dismissed, food, or rather, the right kind of food, and the right way to eat it, has escaped most of us.

Many people simply don't eat right, or enough, or for the right reasons... And, as evidenced by reams of statistics, the toll it can take on the nation's health can be staggering.  In a nation with so much abundance, this simply should not be... In looking at the problem, there are a number of reasons that stand out: information, access, taste and affordability.  When you break it all down, pretty much everybody wants to be happy, healthy, safe and secure.  And, one of the keys to a happy and healthy lifestyle is a healthy diet, one that consists of whole grains, fresh, high quality fruits and vegetables, clean, filtered water, herbs and vitamins.

We at Everlasting Life Health Complex realized this when we began the process of building these stores almost ten years ago.  We started small, just a few people bound by a desire to eat healthily and affordably. Realizing the power of pooling our collective resources, we would buy in bulk, some of the essentials: good, clean filtered water, whole grains, organic herbs, spices and vitamins, fresh produce... whatever we could get that was natural and affordable.  We met weekly in a little garage in Suburban, Maryland, that belonged to one of our members, dividing up our purchases and planning for the day when we could offer what we had to a larger group of folks, who like us, wanted to eat well, healthily and affordably.  

The weekly meetings soon became every other day.  We outgrew the garage and began to shop around for a place that would allow us to take our dream to the next stage of development.  While not much bigger than our first little garage, the first Everlasting Life, put us out there.  It gave us the broader exposure to folks just like us, regular everyday people who have made a commitment to living a full, healthy lifestyle - ironically in a section of town that many would assume - at least at a cursory glance - was devoid of such.  In 1994, we made the leap of faith from our little garage in Temple Hills, Maryland, to a little store on Georgia Avenue, in Washington DC. 

Initially there were a lot of nay-sayers, those who thought "you can't sell real food, natural food in the middle of the 'hood."  And to be honest, it seemed like every fast food joint in the greater Metropolitan Area, had it least 3 stores per block, on the little strip we settled on.  We believed, however, that the high fat, high cholesterol fast-food diet that was yielding staggering rates of obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and prostate cancer, particularly in the African American community, was more a function of economics and accessibility, than anything else.  Provide the right food, and the right information about it, we concluded, and the people will make the right choices.  Two stores and six years of overwhelming support finds at the end of construction of our third and biggest store to date!

The Everlasting Life Health Complex  in Capitol Heights MD is the only African American owned health food complex in the Washington DC area.  Once you get beyond all the studies, the statistics, the hype and the hoopla, it comes down to providing people with the knowledge on how to eat to live, the ability to access the things they need to make it a reality, and the support and dedication to encourage them to do so.

Our goal is to make everyday "A Great Day for Everlasting Life"!