Can word of mouth help a long-running East Cleveland food pantry grow into its new home?

In transitioning from an East Cleveland church to a newer community center building, the Father Michael Wittman Ozanam Center’s weekly food pantry program is better poised to help channel more produce and shelf-stable items to residents. Volunteers, however, are looking to spread word of the relocation and bring attention to the East Cleveland City School District’s Chambers Community Empowerment Center as a whole to increase attendance.

Each Saturday, volunteers with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) spend a few hours converting the lower portion of the Chambers Community Empowerment Center (CCEC) into a shopping center where East Cleveland residents can peruse food items and household merchandise without worrying about costs. 

The unpaid helpers who set up tables, stock bags and then operate the Father Michael Wittman Ozanam Center (FMWOC) food pantry say the community center serves as a better home for the distributions than the FMWOC’s previous outlet at St. Philomena Church, roughly a mile to the south.

Over a dozen unpaid helpers arrive around 9:15 a.m. on Saturdays to begin transforming the former Chambers Elementary School building’s maintenance hallway into the FMWOC food pantry. The distribution site operates as a costless store populated with shelves and racks holding donated clothing accessories and toiletries in usable condition as well as items purchased via the Greater Cleveland Food Bank (GCFB).

“The Father Michael Wittman Ozanam Center is one of seven food pantries (operated by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP)) in Cleveland,” Carol Iott, who serves in a dual volunteer role as site manager and advisory board manager for the regional Catholic-run charity network, explained. “They have 501(c)(3) designation and we are one site around the City of Cleveland. Each site has its own advisory board… I’ve been serving on our advisory board since 2017.”

In heading the eight-member advisory board, Iott said she sits in on quarterly meetings and completes administrative work as required by GCFB via the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Food Assistance Program. 

Through purchases from the food bank, as well as outside donations, more than 44 tons of food were distributed through the center. Those distributions aided over 1,800 East Cleveland households, according to the FMWOC’s annual report, spanning October 2022 to September 2023, rendering the Wittman Center pantry responsible for aiding a sizable 4,480 individuals among SVDP’s service footprint of over 150,000 Northeast Ohio residents over the same time.

Unfortunately, however, volunteers don’t anticipate those distribution figures reaching the same heights during the 2024 fiscal year due to the move out of St. Philomena Church. Iott said the Chambers Center offers improved space with lower costs than the previous location, a better deal and location for FMWOC’s annual $50,000 budget, but many past food pantry recipients have yet to attend drives at the CCEC.

Iott chalked the gradually blossoming attendance to the word of mouth rollout that accompanies any move of this sort. When social service organizations or nonprofits transition spaces, more operational details need to be taken into account.

“It takes time for the community to know we left our old home and arrived at our new one,” she elaborated. “We’re talking about communication and lack of information; a lof of (recipients) don’t have internet…There are safety concerns around East Cleveland, transportation issues, many things we’re still tackling in this transition.”

It’s good, then, that Iott isn’t alone in her efforts: an average of 24 volunteers share good intention and space with her each week. Less good, however, is the turnout. One volunteer explained that an early August distribution saw just 25 people come out to receive food and other items.

Any given Saturday

Recipients in need of clothing might hang a right after entering the Chambers center to encounter Rose Mary Rachel, a two-decade veteran of the food pantry. She spent one August weekend morning stacking, sorting and stocking donated clothing alongside goods like soap bars, toilet paper and moisturizer for pantry visitors to load into bags.

Simultaneously, veteran volunteer Peg Daull spent the morning sifting through books for children who accompanied their parents to the handout. Meanwhile, her husband, Deacon Ray Daull, directed food recipients along the walkway stemming from the Chambers center’s parking lot. 

“I was just reading to a darling young boy,” Daull explained, beaming. “We’re all about literacy, especially from infancy. And, oftentimes, I’ll hear people say ‘My baby’s just two, they don’t need to read.’ I try to convince them because I was a Kindergarten teacher for 35 years and I know the importance of reading early on.”

On the opposite side of the community center’s lower-level north wing is the food. After registering, pantry visitors can come once a month to browse a rotating stock of selections, as well as pre-bagged items made to simulate a grocery store. 

Food bank recipients who attended on Aug. 10, for example, walked away with two cans of black beans, one can of corn, a roll of toilet paper, one package of pasta and a multi-serving bag of dry cereal, among other canned items and personal toiletries.

Rachel, Iott and the hundred-plus other adults comprising FMWOC’s overall volunteer pool, from 15 partner churches, share the building with organizations like Food Strong. 

“If you go up to the other part of the building, it’s beautiful,” Bill Jackson, a decade-plus volunteer with SVDP, said while stocking bags with three-day supplies of canned goods and household items. Volunteers take such precautions in the event of emergencies like the recent storm and resulting power losses. “This is the lower end of the building. It works well for us one day a week. If you go up to the other places, they have public programs.”

Iott said she considers the act of “shopping” the food pantry’s modular plastic shelves a continuation of SVDP’s faith-based and community-centered mission. As one of the broader organizations serving Northeast Ohio, SVDP is uniquely positioned to reach area residents in need via its one-on-one advocacy work.

Centered together

Raymond Daull, a retired deacon with the regional Catholic Diocese, identified SVDP’s home visits as the organization’s biggest asset for helping East Clevelanders. 

“One-on-one engagement with the poor (is what separates us from other Catholic social services,” SVDP Executive Director Jack Bedell explained. “Someone will call looking for assistance; (maybe it’s a single mom with three kids and she’ll call one of our parishes or call downtown to the cathedral and ask for food, clothes for her children.

“What we uniquely do is send two people out from our organization, one of the parish groups, and they go out and meet with the person who made the request,” he added. “They go out to their home. We try to go to where they are.”

The center takes its name from the Catholic Diocese of Greater Cleveland’s Father Michael Wittman, who initiated the food pantry out of the former Christ the King Catholic Church on Noble Road shortly before his death in the spring of 2006. The pantry moved that same year to St. Philomena church following the Diocese’s decision to consolidate parishes.

To Iott, the individualized browsing experience serves to extend those visits. The FMWOC food and clothing giveaways offer an immediate, albeit short-term, solution to many of the material discrepancies that plague East Cleveland residents. Removing that first barrier in the hierarchy of needs then paves the way for social service organizations to more easily untangle the educational, medical and sociological issues that will lead to long-term fixes.

“People call in their needs; rent, electricity, those kinds of needs,” Daull added. “We’ll go pray with them. We make them aware of other conversations, other places in the community. One [organization] I use an awful lot is the Fatima Center.”

Even when navigating a single Wittman Center pantry, it becomes clear that each volunteer seems to have carved out a specialization intended to help buoy poverty-stricken East Clevelanders. Think Peg Daull with her books, paints and bedside manor, or Iott’s experience leading groups and making progress-oriented decisions during her 11-year stint directing long-term strategies for The Cleveland Orchestra. 

“People have way more needs than we can deal with,” Rachel said. “We try to meet some of their needs with food, with clothing and shoes or, in the winter, different kinds of wear they would need (like blankets). But their greatest needs are beyond what we can take care of.” 

Housing, specialized training and jobs may be at a premium alongside sustenance and garments, but Rachel said it’s hard to meet more complex needs without first feeding and clothing people. 

“We treat people with dignity and respect and so choice is part of that,” Iott elaborated. “We don’t want to mandate what people need. We want them to come in and feel like they have a safe space where they can come in and be part of their community and shop.”

Entering the Chambers Community Empowerment Center

Further developed in order to “assist all families in navigating and understanding our school systems” as part of East Cleveland City Schools’ 2022 revitilization plan, the Chambers Community Empowerment Center served as a solid platform for an entity needing a change of space. 

Iott said the Communion of Saints Parish and Catholic Diocese jointly decided that St. Philomena would no longer be able to support the Wittman Center food pantry’s operations earlier this year; the optimism of the volunteer spirit has kept her positive despite some slowdown in foot traffic.

“I don’t want to say we were in a bubble in St. Philomena,” Iott said. “We had a strong following, (but) COVID impacted our reach because so (many people) dropped off. Even though the need was there, there were other issues we were dealing with.” 

During the height of the pandemic, GCFB spent three years distributing rations from the Browns’ Muni Lot, while SVDP and other organizations in Cuyahoga County’s Hunger Network paused or stopped altogether due to health restrictions.

The need for a move amid post-pandemic reemergence may have somewhat stymied the food pantry’s early-2024 efforts out of St. Philomena, but volunteers have seemingly embraced the Chambers center. It holds value as a venue for adding new elements of service like gardening opportunities and informative workshops into SVDP’s mission and network. Meanwhile, it gives food pantry attendees access to a deeper pool of knowledge and resources.

For instance, Faith Dickens, parent empowerment center coordinator with East Cleveland City Schools, pointed to after school programs that work with East Cleveland district students and a planned series of financial literacy information sessions the center will host with U.S. Bank.

“We are the hub of the East Cleveland City Schools district and the hub of providing services to our families,” Dickens continued. “(The building) was closed for a couple of years. The Cleveland Browns contributed to the computer lab, the contributed to the painting and remodeling work. And it’s constantly changing.” Also credited to the Browns: a gymnasium and redesigned public vestibules.

“One story like that keeps you going for a good, long time”

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul volunteers who maintain inventory counts, load bags and gleefully engage with the individuals who rely on the FMWOC are fueled by an apparent enthusiasm and sense of wellbeing and belongingness. 

Outside of her job as program manager at Tri-C’s Creative Arts Academy college prep program, Iott said she finds solace in converting three hours of some weeks into philanthropic aid because it divorces her from her own issues and subscribes her to the larger “spectrum of caring.” 

As it searches for ways to grow its following, FMWOC’s will continue relying on people like Iott to expand its roster of platforms – be those church offices, nonprofit meeting rooms or community centers. In turn, each will encourage East Cleveland residents to consider a trip to the Wittman pantry’s distributions. 

Winter’s approach always exacerbates the need for the FMWOC food pantry’s stock of items, but with Iott and over a hundred other volunteers committed to rotate in as staff each week, the program intends to increase its service load by offering fresh produce and cold-weather clothing at the Chambers center for the first time. 

“This work is a powerful thing; it puts society in perspective,” she said. “It keeps things in perspective and helps to move you forward in helping others.”

Readers interested in visiting the Chambers Community Empowerment Center can attend the final two workshops in a financial literacy series that East Cleveland City Schools is hosting in conjunction with US Bank over the following two Wednesdays at the CCEC from 5:30 to 7 p.m. (Image courtesy of Faith Dickens, East Cleveland City Schools and US Bank.)