Jan 14, 2008 12:00 PM, By GEORGE ELLIS

It's a time-honored precept that the local grocer is a hub of the community, and today a great many supermarket companies continue to pay close attention to helping meet the needs of their communities. In choosing the winner of SN's Community Service Award for 2008, the task was to find a grocer setting the best example for the times we live in.

The community grocer is alive and well in western Virginia and the eastern parts of Tennessee and Kentucky, the territory where K-VA-T Food Stores operates. Selected to receive this year's Community Service Award, K-VA-T — named after abbreviations of the three states it serves — is a role model for supermarkets that seek to form stronger ties with the communities they serve.

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