Cutline.
Photo credit
One of the many Muni Lot distributions in the last year
PHOTO COURTESY THE GREATER CLEVELAND FOOD BANK
‘THE NEED IS URGENT’ A conversation with greater Cleveland Food Ban President and CEO Kristen Warzocha, after a year of unprecedented hunger By Sam Allard THE ECONOMIC CARNAGE WROUGHT BY THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic has pushed Cleveland’s support systems to their limits. Lost jobs and lost wages have put Northeast Ohio families in perilous financial binds, with thousands wondering how they’ll pay their rent, mortgage, utility and medical bills. More than ever, Clevelanders have also been left unable to feed their families. In this time of historic need, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank has been there. Scene’s Sam Allard talked with CEO Kristen Warzocha about how it’s been able to step up to the plate, and what waits around the corner as the Food Bank gets set to break ground on a new headquarters. | clevescene.com | April 7-20, 2021 18
Sam Allard: I’m fully aware that the answer is probably “everything,” but let me start by asking, ‘How are things different for the Food Bank today than they were one year ago?’ Kristen Warzocha: Well, it has truly been an extraordinary year. Last March, when Gov. DeWine issued his stay-at-home order, we had a number of huge challenges thrust on our plate essentially overnight. The first,
of course, was the skyrocketing need. It was like nothing we’d ever seen in our 40-year history. The second was volunteer cancellations. We had 1,400 volunteers cancel in the first two weeks. Volunteers are critical to our operation. They help us make meals in our kitchen, they help us sort and package donated food. We can’t do this work without them. We usually have 21,000 volunteers in a year. Last year, we
