Our Mission
Our mission is to cultivate food justice in Northeast Ohio and beyond by building enduring local food systems from the ground up. We use the power of food and collaboration to transform under-resourced neighborhoods into thriving, self-sustaining communities.
In all of our work, we make sure to engage the community. We work with, not for, communities, with the mindset that sustainability is ensured when the community has a sense of ownership over our work. We also form strategic partnerships with groups and individuals from the public, business and nonprofit sectors.
It takes a village, and by working together, we are able to conserve resources while bringing in the services and expertise of a variety of like-minded stakeholders.
Food Strong is dedicated to using fresh foods as a tool to educate, empower, and cultivate health throughout Northeast Ohio. We offer a variety of programs including the School Gardens, Care-A-Van, community culinary education, Mobile Farm Stand, and our Vacant Lot Restoration Initiative which is now focused on our new Superior Farm Fixup, all designed to engage local neighborhoods through collaborative food and health-conscious education initiatives.
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Our History
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Food Strong was founded by Sara Continenza in 2018 to serve as an umbrella organization for two programs: her School Garden initiative and Care-a-Van community wellness program (initially launched in 2017). Food Strong started in 2 inner-city schools, guiding students through designing, building, planting, maintaining, and harvesting their own onsite food and native flower gardens. Since then, Food Strong has grown to serve 14 schools.
In 2020, we constructed our Learning Garden, our urban farm located at East Cleveland's historic Coit Road Farmers Market. We use this space to host field trips and learning experiences, and use the food we grow in our culinary education, and to sell in the communities we serve. We host monthly, onsite volunteer events to help us plant, develop, and maintain our Learning Garden, and assist the Market with much-needed maintenance and repairs. Since we started this garden, we have worked with our various community partners to fund and construct a rain garden, composting toilet, off-grid solar office with walk-in cooler, two gathering spaces, and a raised garden with 30+ beds.
In 2022, we added our Vacant Lot Restoration Initiative to our programs through support from Cuyahoga County. In 2023, we launched a Mobile Farm Stand (MFS) from which we can sell fresh produce from our Learning Garden and other healthy, local products in communities with low access to fresh food retail options. We implement dozens of community culinary classes every year in a variety of community settings, and have a blender bike to make blending smoothies fun for the whole community. In 2024, we acquired a 3-acre farm on Superior Ave in downtown Cleveland as a donation and are in the process of transforming it into our headquarters, education hub, and community gathering space/farm. To learn more about our services or partnering with our organization, email info@foodstrong.org.
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"Being able to work with Food Strong mural project has been one of the best things I’ve been able to be involved in. I loved being a part of a positive force in the community." - Carson Bassett, Muralist
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the food strong team
Sara Continenza
Founder and Executive Director
Aja Joi Grant
Educator
Katie Signorelli
Executive Assistant
Fatima Muntaser
Junior Office Associate
Mia Farinacci
Graphic Design Associate
Nicole Salerno
President
Joseph Jerdonek
Vice President
Sam Weir
Secretary
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