By Brett Hetherington*

The sun was bright and the air brisk making the morning of April 6 a beautiful one to host the grand opening of Gonder Place in southeast Canton. A project that was years in the making, Gonder Place brings affordable food and healthcare to an area that has had neither readily available in more than 50 years.

Southeast Canton is home to approximately 9,000 people. The last grocery store closed in 1972. Factories in the vicinity closed about 40 years ago when the newly built highway cut through the neighborhood and isolated residents. Gonder Place is the realization of an eight-year dream that this area would no longer be cut off and will begin to thrive.

“In 1972 when they tore down the last grocery store that was in this neighborhood – by no fault of their own – had thought in their hearts that this wasn’t right. A lot of people gave a lot of money to this stuff. But a lot of people over the last 50 years all they had was hope that it wasn’t right. But we do know that hope is never lost, and God can always use lost hope,” said Rev. Don Ackerman, pastor of Crossroads United Methodist Church (Central Valley) in Canton.

Gonder Place has been a mission undertaken by a partnership between Canton for All People, The City of Canton, The East Ohio Conference of The United Methodist Church, multiple charitable foundations, and many area churches. The dream is to provide affordable food and healthcare in an area where none was available.

“This is the first step in many battles we have yet to fight. To have health care in the southeast neighborhood which has the highest infant mortality rates in the city, its life changing. This is just the first step of many steps to come,” said Canton mayor William V. Sherer II.

Sherer was one of many local and state dignitaries who were on hand to celebrate the grand opening of Gonder Place. Congresswoman Emilia Sykes presented a certificate of special congressional recognition to Gonder Place and shared her admiration for the work of its team.

“These types of projects are not easy. I see them all over the district, all over the country. And for someone to wants to serve an underserved and refuses to take no for an answer that is very special,” she said.

The clinic is run by My Community Health Center, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit primary care health center that provides care to all patients regardless of ability to pay. “We offer primary care, some infectious disease care, and some counseling,” shared Latoya Dickens-Jones, an advanced practice registered nurse. The clinic is fully functional with exam rooms, lab space, meeting rooms and office spaces.

“We intentionally have open office hours for people to just drop in,” said Pastor Mike Farmer, Food Justice & Community Ministries pastor of Crossroads UMC. “They take all forms of insurance and even work with people on a sliding scale for payment. No one gets turned away.”

The market is managed by Sommers Discount Market. Offering deli, fresh produce, dry goods and even hot foods and ice cream the plan for the market is to make everything as affordable as possible. They have also been able to provide employment for a few members of the community.

“We have three people hired from the community and I can’t say enough good about them. They are amazing employees,” said owner Roland Sommers. He also shared that he would like to offer more hot food items and bring in more applicants as the market grows.

Throughout the morning the market was quite busy with people making purchases large and small. Open only for two weeks and it has been meeting its goal, providing affordable sustenance in the midst of the southeast Canton food desert.

“This area of Canton is designated by the US Agricultural Department as a food desert and designated by another department as one in serious need of medical facilities. This combination today takes care of two serious problems for us here in our community,” shared former Canton Mayor Thomas Bernabei.

Ackerman closed the mornings festivities with an excited reminder to all, proclaiming “We do not dwell in an economy of scarcity. We dwell inside God’s divine economy of abundance.”

The Conference Communications team would like to share other stories that highlight ways that each of us is answering the call of Bishop Tracy S. Malone to reach out to our communities in creative ways. Please e-mail your ministry story to EOC Executive Director of Communications Rick Wolcott at wolcott@eocumc.com.

* Brett Hetherington is the Communications specialist for the East Ohio Conference of The United Methodist Church.