Posted Monday, August 20, 4:33 p.m.

Three Safeway grocery stores in Northwest D.C. will accept Colonial Cash within the next two weeks, University officials said Monday.

One of the locations is in the Watergate complex, and two are in Georgetown – one nearby the Mount Vernon campus on McArthur Boulevard.

“I think students have always been asking for a grocery store. It rounds out Colonial Cash nicely – especially since the District Market closed,” said Christine Fischer, assistant director of contract services. “We’re excited about it.”

Tracy Schario, director of Media Relations, said the final partnership was largely the result of Student Association leaders.

“(They) were able to get a meeting with the folks at Safeway and they found a way to work with the GW folks and break through the Safeway bureaucracy and made a case to make Safeway a Colonial Cash partner,” Schario said. “It was really student led.”

SA Chief of Staff Steve Glatter said he traveled to the Safeway corporate office in April with President Nicole Capp, Executive Vice President Brand Kroeger, and Sen. Matt Cohen (U-SoB). They asked for a meeting with company officials to discuss joining the GWorld program, Glatter said.

“We met with the CFO, and we just explained to them the program: what it was, why students wanted it, why it was going to be great for them and the community,” Glatter said. “And they were just really excited about it. And then throughout the summer we’ve been following up with that, and the administration followed up on the details.”

Glatter said more specifics about this partnership will be released by mid-week.