CLEVELAND — The nearly 200,000-square-foot building is here to help.
With inflation rising and holidays around the corner, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank is seeing a growing need across Northeast Ohio.
"I hope and pray that our community doesn't need 100 million emergency meals a day, Food Bank President and CEO Kristin Warzocha said, "but if the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that we need to be ready, and so this facility will allow us the space to do that."
May, June, July, and September this year have set records for the number of people seeking assistance, and Warzocha says she and her workers continue to see new clients who can benefit from the new hub.
"We have an on-site production kitchen that has four times the capacity of our old kitchen," she told 3News. "In that kitchen, we make thousands of meals a day."
One of the organizations that depends on the food bank is the local Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
"We would not be able to serve the meals we do to the thousands of kids in Greater Cleveland without the food bank," their CEO Allen Smith said.
According to Smith, about 1/3 of kids that come the Boys and Girls Clubs may have their final meal of the day at school or with them, adding to the importance of food accessibility.
"To come in and see how much work is taking place, to see how much work is now happening in this facility, is just tremendous," Smith stated.