Season 2 Review: Communities’ Collaborations to push forward solutions
This season, Brick by Brick covered a variety of different solutions that took us to neighborhoods all across Southwest Ohio and beyond. There were three stories that stood out to me this past season because of a recurring theme: multiple individuals and groups in a community joining forces to tackle a problem. In this article we will look at:
- Neighborhood Food Markets in food desert areas.
- Meals on Wheels expanding to meet the needs of seniors.
- Tiny Homes being the right fit for affordable and available housing.
To read more about our other updates, click here.
Gem City Market and Meiser Fresh Grocery and Deli.
When we last saw Gem City Market, in Old Dayton Neighborhood in Dayton, they just established their four-year plan to reach sustainability in their store. Some of those goals included: achieving $48,000/week in sales by year-end and growing their gross margin to 32.5% through better purchasing to reduce shrink and loss prevention. Amaha Sellassie, Board President of Gem City, tells us they weren’t able to meet those goals, but they are hopeful thanks to support from the community. “With our fundraising goal…we did pretty good for a year one thanks to the generosity of the community. We’re still trying to figure out, this margin and what [the patrons] of the store actually want.”
Sellassie stresses this specificity because the margin of error, or wasted food, would stress an already difficult market that is facing more difficulties due to federal cuts. With the passage of the Reconciliation Bill, also known as the Big Beautiful Bill, these markets may face more hurdles with potential cuts of programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, which account for 25% of transactions with Gem City.
“And with the Big Beautiful Bill, some of those resources were cut. And that’s impacting people. And the Produce Perks program is kind of questionable. It’s off and on. And so that’s been hindering us, as well. So, we’re meeting the people that we wanted to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables the most. But at the same time, they’re the ones that are suffering the most. When the federal government makes these types of cuts.” said Sellasie.
Despite the cuts, Sellasie is hopeful things will get better with the market reaching the 5-year anniversary–a feat a few independent grocery stores are able to achieve, according to Sellasie. “We just celebrated our five-year anniversary, which is a huge milestone, especially for black and brown co-ops. And so, there’s very few that have ever made that point.”
We see the difficulty of independent neighborhood grocery stores staying open, with the unexpected closure of Meiser Fresh Grocery and Deli in the Lower Price Hill community. The board that operated the market, Your Store of the Queen City, put out a statement citing “systemic challenges, supply chain barriers and income instability” as the cause of the closure. We reached out to the board directly for further comment but haven’t heard back yet.
Green Umbrella’s Food Policy Council oversees areas like Lower Price Hill to see what solutions could be implemented to help meet the needs of the community. The Council Manager, Rosa E. Baker says different organizations have stepped in to try to fill the gap. “Community Matters is working to connect people with fresh food. Last Mile Food Rescue those markets down there. Right now, there are a lot of wonderful community agencies working to fill that gap, but we’re just kind of back where we started.”
Grassroots efforts keep Baker hopeful. The City of Cincinnati’s Office of Human Services has given out an $850,000 grant to Cincinnati Children’s and several community partners to address food insecurity and reduce gun violence in neighborhoods like Lower Price Hill. “We have a lot of great grassroots movements that are happening, that are working to feed folks and get access to fresh, locally grown produce in our communities. I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to build that.”
Meals on Wheels of Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky
When we last saw Meals on Wheels of Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky, they were breaking ground at a new headquarters at a former dealership in Columbia Township. This new headquarters would allow the organization to go from producing 1.2 million meals a year to more than 3 million. Chief Production Officer, Michael Beck, says with the number of seniors growing, this upgrade is needed. “Our senior population is growing hit in record numbers, and there’s less, you know, youth and people that can support them. Families are more spread out. 1 in 4 seniors live alone. And they just don’t have the infrastructure that may have existed 20 or 30 years ago to support them as they age in place”.
Beck says inflation and costs require the organization to evolve. The new headquarters won’t be ready until early 2027, in the meantime the organization is finding alternate ways to save costs such as strategically purchasing in bulk. Responding to the rising fuel costs, Beck says they are zoning in on creating efficient routes for food deliveries.
Some of the obstacles in the economy have affected other Meals on Wheels operations like at the Senior Resource Connection center in Dayton. Rising operating costs and insufficient long-term funding has caused the organization to end their operations. This nonprofit delivers personal care, transportation, and daily hot meals to seniors and disabled residents and those services will come to an end in a couple of months. The organization is about 500 feet from Gem City Market. Sellassie said Gem City is willing to help in any way that it can. Beck also reached out to help the organization as they offload their services. The Senior Resource Connection center is figuring out which groups can step in to help the residents they serve to at least continue hot meal deliveries and do home checks. Closings like that remind Beck of one of the reasons to open the new headquarters.
“Post Covid…we’ve seen that Agencies just have not been able to absorb all the costs along the way. And that was a big impetus for us building this [new headquarters]. We want it to be inflation proof. We want to diversify our funding, get into other areas where we can raise more money to help offset some of the services that can no longer can support themselves.”
Tiny Homes for Humanity
When we last saw Tiny Homes for Humanity, it was waiting for approval from the Madisonville Community Council to build its tiny homes community for veterans on the vacant lot belonging to the Gaines United Methodist Church. Since then, President of the organization, Earl Crossland, says its been approved and the support is outstanding.
“We were hoping to get $750,000 by June 30th. And I can report that if we collect all the pledges, we will have reached that goal. So, it’s really exciting. And we’re just so, pleased with the outpouring of generosity.”
Crossland even pointed to programs like Brick by Brick for being the reason that more people are aware of their development project. “Every time we get some publicity, either on a TV station or on your program, people just go to our website and give and it’s amazing. People give anywhere from $50 to $5000”.
Other churches and other property owners have approached the development company to see if they could build a tiny home neighborhood on the vacant property on their land as well. Crossland says he believes the reason people are invested into this project is because of the current state of veterans in the area. “Veterans really need our help. And there are over 500 homeless veterans in the Cincinnati area. And when people hear that, their heart goes out. They just really want to help.”
The next step for the organization is to finalize the zoning for the14 Tiny Homes they plan to build. They still need to continue to fundraise their project that costs about $2 million. If everything goes according to plan, they will break ground in December of 2026 and have the project complete by the summer of 2028.
Hernz Laguerre Jr. – Multi-Media Journalist
Hernz is a Haitian American who was born and raised in Spring Valley, NY. He attended school at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where he learned to hone his skills as a storyteller. After graduating with his Bachelors in Broadcast and Digital Journalism and his Masters in Television Radio and Film, he went on to a career in media as a producer, reporter and freelance videographer for companies like ESPN and Court TV. He eventually moved to Detroit, where he worked as a Multimedia Journalist for The Detroit News and then the NPR affiliate, WDET, before starting his work with the Brick by Brick team at CET and ThinkTV. Hernz aims to produce stories that tell the bigger picture while doing his due diligence to educate and inform the public about the solutions-focused work being done in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.
