Diversity + Inclusion
Fresh Water explores a quartet of Cleveland's ethnic houses of worship that endure in traditions of faith, history and culture.
Fresh Water checks in with supporters of Trump, Clinton and Johnson as well as those that did not vote.
While most Clevelanders were finally finishing off the Thanksgiving leftovers, these organizations were busy announcing loans and programs aimed at helping area small businesses, entrepreneurs and employees with good ideas.
-A unique collaborative of organizations and institutions has launched a small business lending program to help African American and minority businesses create and maintain jobs for residents and build community wealth. With a focus on bringing capital to underserved groups, the National Urban League’s Urban Empowerment Fund, Morgan Stanley, the National Development Council, the Urban League of Greater Cleveland, and Cuyahoga County have come together to offer the Capital Access Fund of Greater Cleveland (CAF).
CAF is a three-year program that provides minority business owners with access to capital offering 50 loans totaling $8 million as well as pre- and post-loan counseling to ensure the success of those small business borrowers. With a goal of creating or maintaining a minimum of 300 jobs within those three years, CAF already has completed 8 loans totaling $1.4 million helping to create or maintain 70 local jobs.
Read more here.
-Bad Girl Ventures Cleveland celebrated their fall 2016 graduation and five-year anniversary on November 30th by awarding two $15,000 loans, in partnership with the Economic Community Development Institute (ECDI), to the following women entrepreneurs: Liza Rifkin of Liza Michelle Jewelry and Angelina Rodriguez Pata of Blackbird Fly Boutique. Both are located in Ohio City.
-The MetroHealth System hosted its second Think Tank Competition on November 30. Modeled after the ABC show Shark Tank, employees submitted their ideas for a chance to win money to fund projects for the betterment of MetroHealth. Two winners were awarded a cool $150,000 each.
Their projects include one aimed at the development of a strategic approach to reduce the risks of opioid dependence and addiction for patients and the community through integrated pathways, analytics, informatics, and education. The other will create a formal team/department to administer and coordinate all of event medicine needs.
Read more here.
-A unique collaborative of organizations and institutions has launched a small business lending program to help African American and minority businesses create and maintain jobs for residents and build community wealth. With a focus on bringing capital to underserved groups, the National Urban League’s Urban Empowerment Fund, Morgan Stanley, the National Development Council, the Urban League of Greater Cleveland, and Cuyahoga County have come together to offer the Capital Access Fund of Greater Cleveland (CAF).
CAF is a three-year program that provides minority business owners with access to capital offering 50 loans totaling $8 million as well as pre- and post-loan counseling to ensure the success of those small business borrowers. With a goal of creating or maintaining a minimum of 300 jobs within those three years, CAF already has completed 8 loans totaling $1.4 million helping to create or maintain 70 local jobs.
Read more here.
-Bad Girl Ventures Cleveland celebrated their fall 2016 graduation and five-year anniversary on November 30th by awarding two $15,000 loans, in partnership with the Economic Community Development Institute (ECDI), to the following women entrepreneurs: Liza Rifkin of Liza Michelle Jewelry and Angelina Rodriguez Pata of Blackbird Fly Boutique. Both are located in Ohio City.
-The MetroHealth System hosted its second Think Tank Competition on November 30. Modeled after the ABC show Shark Tank, employees submitted their ideas for a chance to win money to fund projects for the betterment of MetroHealth. Two winners were awarded a cool $150,000 each.
Their projects include one aimed at the development of a strategic approach to reduce the risks of opioid dependence and addiction for patients and the community through integrated pathways, analytics, informatics, and education. The other will create a formal team/department to administer and coordinate all of event medicine needs.
Read more here.
Dazzling images captured by Fresh Water managing photographer Bob Perkoski from "Day of the Dead" celebrations in Gordon Square.
As Cleveland’s eastern suburbs were just beginning to establish themselves in the 1920s, Cleveland’s Lee-Harvard neighborhood, bordering Shaker Heights, Warrensville Heights and Maple Heights on the the city’s south east side, was thriving in its own right.
The Lee-Harvard neighborhood, once known as Miles Heights Village and the Lee-Seville neighborhoods, was historically an integrated community of notable firsts. Ohio’s first African-American mayor, Arthur Johnston was elected in 1929 when the neighborhood was mostly white. His house on East 147th Street still stands today.
The neighborhood established many of the first citizen's councils and neighborhood associations in the region and had an interracial police force.
On Thursday, October 6, the Cleveland Restoration Society (CRS), along with Cleveland Ward 1 councilman Terrell Pruitt, the Harvard Community Services Center and CSU’s Maxine Levin Goodman College of Urban Affairs, will present “Cleveland’s Suburb in the City: The Development and Growth of Lee-Harvard.”
The free discussion will be led by Todd Michney, assistant professor at the University of Toledo and author of Changing Neighborhoods: Black Upward Mobility in Cleveland, 1900-1980.
“We at CRS have been so impressed with the neighborhoods of Ward 1, Lee-Harvard and Lee-Seville,” says Michael Fleenor, CRS director of preservation services, "because they reflect our recent history – Cleveland’s last expansion, progress in Civil Rights, and the growth of neighborhood associations and community development corporations in the late 20th Century."
Click here for photos and to continue reading about the fascinating history of this stalwart Cleveland neighborthood.
The Lee-Harvard neighborhood, once known as Miles Heights Village and the Lee-Seville neighborhoods, was historically an integrated community of notable firsts. Ohio’s first African-American mayor, Arthur Johnston was elected in 1929 when the neighborhood was mostly white. His house on East 147th Street still stands today.
The neighborhood established many of the first citizen's councils and neighborhood associations in the region and had an interracial police force.
On Thursday, October 6, the Cleveland Restoration Society (CRS), along with Cleveland Ward 1 councilman Terrell Pruitt, the Harvard Community Services Center and CSU’s Maxine Levin Goodman College of Urban Affairs, will present “Cleveland’s Suburb in the City: The Development and Growth of Lee-Harvard.”
The free discussion will be led by Todd Michney, assistant professor at the University of Toledo and author of Changing Neighborhoods: Black Upward Mobility in Cleveland, 1900-1980.
“We at CRS have been so impressed with the neighborhoods of Ward 1, Lee-Harvard and Lee-Seville,” says Michael Fleenor, CRS director of preservation services, "because they reflect our recent history – Cleveland’s last expansion, progress in Civil Rights, and the growth of neighborhood associations and community development corporations in the late 20th Century."
Click here for photos and to continue reading about the fascinating history of this stalwart Cleveland neighborthood.
Years in the making, plans for La Villa Hispana – a center celebrating Latino heritage and commerce in the Clark Fulton neighborhood – will be unveiled next month at a City Planning Commission meeting.
"If you don't try anything, you never know what will happen."
Such is the mindset of Lyz Otero, owner of Half Moon Bakery, a soon-to-be-opened seller of traditional Latin pastries and empanadas. Otero took the leap with a little help from the Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI), an organization that in August announced more than $530,000 in loans to 21 Cleveland-area businesses.
Nineteen of those loans were to new minority- or women-owned ventures, with Puerto Rico native Otero receiving $50,000 for equipment and improvements to her 1,200 square-foot space at 3800 Pearl Rd. Otero and husband Gerson Velasquez are using the funding to pay contractors and architects, as well as buy stove hoods and other gear. ECDI also provided the couple with financial management and computer classes.
Otero is aiming for an early November launch for a bakery offering a dozen types of empanadas. The new entrepreneur looks forward to stuffing the half-moon shaped pastry turnovers with endless combinations of meat, vegetables and fruit.
"It will almost be like a pizzeria, but with empanadas," says Otero. "Everything you put on a pizza can go on an empanada."
Vegan and gluten-free empanadas will be on the menu, joining Latin cuisine like rice and tamales. Fresh bread, cupcakes and other delectable confections round out the selection. Otero will create the bakery's pastry products, with her husband serving as chef. During the next month, she expects to hire on two cashiers and an additional cook.
While the smaller space will focus on take-out orders, patrons can eat inside on stools along the window. Outdoor seating, meanwhile, is a possibility for warm-weather months.
Opening the business has been both exciting and nerve-wracking. Though no stranger to the restaurant industry - past employers include Zack Bruell and Michael Symon - there's nothing for Otero like working for herself. Friend Wendy Thompson, owner of A Cookie and a Cupcake, encouraged her to start a bakery with a unique Latin flair.
"We're focusing on gourmet empanadas, which nobody else around here is doing," says Otero. "You never see a place like this where there's so many different kinds of empanadas."
Ultimately, Otero wants to leave a delicious, profitable legacy for her three children, ages 4, 6 and 7.
"I've always dreamed to do this," she says. "I had to step up and follow my dreams, because nobody was going to do it for me."
Such is the mindset of Lyz Otero, owner of Half Moon Bakery, a soon-to-be-opened seller of traditional Latin pastries and empanadas. Otero took the leap with a little help from the Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI), an organization that in August announced more than $530,000 in loans to 21 Cleveland-area businesses.
Nineteen of those loans were to new minority- or women-owned ventures, with Puerto Rico native Otero receiving $50,000 for equipment and improvements to her 1,200 square-foot space at 3800 Pearl Rd. Otero and husband Gerson Velasquez are using the funding to pay contractors and architects, as well as buy stove hoods and other gear. ECDI also provided the couple with financial management and computer classes.
Otero is aiming for an early November launch for a bakery offering a dozen types of empanadas. The new entrepreneur looks forward to stuffing the half-moon shaped pastry turnovers with endless combinations of meat, vegetables and fruit.
"It will almost be like a pizzeria, but with empanadas," says Otero. "Everything you put on a pizza can go on an empanada."
Vegan and gluten-free empanadas will be on the menu, joining Latin cuisine like rice and tamales. Fresh bread, cupcakes and other delectable confections round out the selection. Otero will create the bakery's pastry products, with her husband serving as chef. During the next month, she expects to hire on two cashiers and an additional cook.
While the smaller space will focus on take-out orders, patrons can eat inside on stools along the window. Outdoor seating, meanwhile, is a possibility for warm-weather months.
Opening the business has been both exciting and nerve-wracking. Though no stranger to the restaurant industry - past employers include Zack Bruell and Michael Symon - there's nothing for Otero like working for herself. Friend Wendy Thompson, owner of A Cookie and a Cupcake, encouraged her to start a bakery with a unique Latin flair.
"We're focusing on gourmet empanadas, which nobody else around here is doing," says Otero. "You never see a place like this where there's so many different kinds of empanadas."
Ultimately, Otero wants to leave a delicious, profitable legacy for her three children, ages 4, 6 and 7.
"I've always dreamed to do this," she says. "I had to step up and follow my dreams, because nobody was going to do it for me."
