PHOTO BY ABE KURP

Wednesday, August 12, 2026; Site of Greater Cleveland Food Bank’s future West Side Community Resource Center, 9830 Lorain Avenue: Greater Cleveland Food Bank’s Chief Logistics Officer Dwayne Brake outlines the security measures that will be in place at the West Side Community Resource Center.

PHOTO BY ABE KURP

Wednesday, August 12, 2026; Site of Greater Cleveland Food Bank’s future West Side Community Resource Center, 9830 Lorain Avenue: Greater Cleveland Food Bank President and Chief Executive Officer Kristin Warzocha lead the tour of the future home of the West Side Community Resource Center.

by Abe Kurp

   (Plain Press September 2026) The Greater Cleveland Food Bank is set to open its first West Side Community Resource Center (CRC) in January 2027 on the corner of W. 98th St. and Lorain Ave.

   At a community meeting at the site of the upcoming center on August 12, Greater Cleveland Food Bank President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kristin Warzocha explained that, like its east-side counterpart, which opened in November 2023 on S. Waterloo Rd. in the North Collinwood neighborhood, the new center will be a place for people to access free food in a grocery-store-style environment. While they’re there, they will also be able to access free resources from the food bank’s partner organizations, including Cuyahoga Community College, Neighborhood Family Practice, Goodwill, and Digital C. Representatives from Cuyahoga Job and Family Services will also be on hand to help people apply for SNAP and other government benefits.

   “Because in almost every case, hunger is a symptom of another problem,” Warzocha said. “We want to try to address hunger today by making sure that food’s available, but if there’s an underlying issue and we can connect them to a community partner to address that issue, that is a great long-term solution as well.”

   Warzocha gave meeting attendees a hard-hat tour of the under-construction building and spoke about some of the features the new center will have, including a test kitchen where chefs will prepare dishes using ingredients available at the center that day and a large market area where people can browse aisles of food and select what they want. There will also be a play area in the lobby that clients’ children can play in while waiting for assistance.

   A large volunteer area – where volunteers can take a break, grab a snack, and store their personal items in lockers – speaks to the outsized role volunteers will play in the daily operations of the center, including greeting and chatting with clients and helping them navigate their way around the market.

   “One of the most important things to us is that everyone who walks in the door is greeted warmly, with a big smile,” Warzocha said. “It can be hard to go into a food pantry or into a soup kitchen or into another agency, and we don’t want people to be embarrassed. We want people to have a great experience when they walk in the door.”

   Dwayne Brake, Chief Logistics Officer for the food bank, who also spoke at the meeting, explained that one of the lessons learned from the Waterloo location is the need for renewed focus on security. The new Center will include an unarmed security monitor who will be present in the building, it will have lighting in both of the Center’s parking lots, 24/7 security cameras throughout the grounds, and private security patrolling the parking lots.

   Brake emphasized that all personnel will be unarmed but will be trained in deescalation techniques, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), and first aid.

   “We don’t want to have an armed guard’s presence in the building, just because it’s a community resource center,” Brake said. “We feel that a lot of the tension that normally comes in is deescalated through a conversation. Someone’s having a bad day, a lot of negative things are hitting you at once, but you come into the CRC, you see that these services are really helping you, and that really deescalates the situation.”

   Brake also said that the building will be equipped with a back-up generator, which will both allow the center to preserve the food in their freezers and coolers and to be able aid neighbors in the event of a power outage or natural disaster.

   “I know last year and the year before, we’ve had some extended power outages for several days,” Brake said. “Those are the times when we may have increased traffic coming to the food bank for those emergency services, and we want to make sure that we’re open to be able to provide support in that time of need.”

   Warzocha noted that the building was originally built as a Pick-N-Pay grocery store in the 1960s. Since 2006, it’s been home to offices run by Cuyahoga Job and Family Services, but during the pandemic many of the services offered at that center went remote and the space has been under-utilized since.

   The Food Bank chose the building after an extensive search and community surveys. Warzocha said they like the fact that the building is close to two bus lines, the number 18 that runs down W. 98th St. and the number 22 which runs down Lorain Ave., and she also expects that many people will come to the center on foot, from the surrounding neighborhood. She added that their partner the Westown Community Development Corporation recently received a grant to spruce up the streetscape in the area, including a new mural on the side of the cell phone store across the street from the center, more street trees, and new benches.

   More than anything, though, Warzocha said it was the high need in the surrounding area that attracted the food bank to this site. She said that more than 192,000 people who live within a five-mile radius of the building are income-eligible for food from the food bank – that is, they are at 200% of the federal poverty line or below – and of those, about 52,000 are income-eligible but are not being served.

   “We’ve got great partners in this neighborhood, for sure, but there is also an extraordinary amount of need,” she said.

   While the center’s hours are still being finalized, Warzocha said that, in addition to regular Monday through Friday hours, it will also be open in the evening for at least one day during the week and will be open every other Saturday.

Editor’s note: If you’d like to share feedback or see the site for yourself, you can attend the food bank’s next community meeting on Wednesday, September 23 from 5 pm to 6:30 pm. The building’s address is 9830 Lorain Ave. If you’re in immediate need of assistance, you can call the food bank’s help line at 216-738-2067 Mondays through Fridays from 7 am to 6 pm.