Trinity Cathedral

Part of the All Our Children network.

A Place at the Table (APATT), founded in 1983 to serve our neighbors, provides a hot lunch on Sundays when most social service organizations are closed. The program relies on volunteer servers from Trinity and other congregations and organizations.

For many of downtown Cleveland’s homeless and hungry, Trinity’s Sunday hot meal is the only nutrition they’ll receive that day. For more than 30 years without fail, APATT has provided a “no questions asked” nutritious meal in a warm, welcoming space. Over the years, APATT has sometimes been the only downtown Sunday meal site with the next closest option a 5-mile walk away. Last year, APATT provided almost 9,000 meals over 52 Sundays to 100-200 hungry Clevelanders. 

To better meet the needs of our less fortunate neighbors and increase the impact of our service, Trinity turned to a community partner—Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries (LMM). Trinity’s partnership with LMM began in early 2014, using its Central Kitchen program. Central Kitchen is a social enterprise program that provides food service job training and re-entry employment for about 50 recently-released convicts. Central Kitchen uses produce from Trinity’s urban farm and prepares “A Place at the Table” weekly meals that Trinity volunteers help serve.

To learn more about this hunger ministry or if you would like to volunteer, please contact Trinity member Lawrence Edem or staff member Ginger Bitikofer.

Trinity Urban Farm at East. 35th and Cedar Avenue continues to flourish. We harvest hundreds of pounds of food each week during the growing season for meals served at A Place at the Table and also provide flowers for the Trinity altar arrangements.

Volunteers have harvested 28,000 pounds of food to feed Cleveland’s hungry.

We need help weeding, mowing, trimming, watering, nurturing, harvesting and much more! Our workdays are Saturdays from 9 a. m. – noon. Call to arrange to work on other days.

Contact Ginger Bitikofer at (216) 774-0407 or email Urban Farm Leader Scott Blanchard.

Trinity Garden

Trinity Urban Farm in the news

UPON SACRED GROUND
Trinity Cathedral’s Community Garden an article in Edible Cleveland by Trinity member Anastasia Pantsios. Read the article here.

Growing Hope
[This article appeared in the summer 2014 issue of ChurchLife! The magazine of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio]
Since 2006, volunteers working at the Trinity Cathedral Urban Farm have harvested more than 18,000 pounds of food to feed Cleveland’s hungry and homeless.

Once a sight of devastation, the corner of E. 35th and Cedar Avenue in Cleveland now brims with life. Cucumbers, green beans, cabbage, onions, peaches, apples, herbs, tulips and irises have replaced the bricks of a torn-down apartment building, car parts, rocks and garbage that once filled the inner-city lot. Read the entire article.

Support the Farm with Used Inkjet Cartridges
Bring your used inkjet cartridges to Trinity (sorry, Epson brand is not accepted, nor are toner/laser cartridges) and drop them in the recycle box in the coat room. All cartridges are sent to a recycling center in Pennsylvania and the money raised is used to purchase seeds, seedlings and other gardening supplies.

The following poem was offered by Joyce Green, an Urban Farm volunteer, at the annual potluck dinner that kicks off the growing season for Trinity’s Urban Farmers. Note: The bean-dog reference is to another volunteer’s dog, that loves beans.

“Let the Planting Begin”

Welcome to the potluck din,
Our gardening season doth begin.
With some food and drink and thought,
Let us plan our urban plot.
Reviewing tools and seeds we’ve got,
And what plants need to still be bought.
Turn the wheel and then assign,
Vegetables in a new design.
Rotate collards and tomatoes,
Beans and eggplants and potatoes.
With some luck and rain and sun,
Saturday mornings will be fun.
To see the progress as we toil,
With aching backs we prod the soil.
And bring our seedlings to fruition,
A hearty bounty is our mission.
See you there around 8 or 9,
You never know who or what you’ll find.
One thing cer-tain-ly will be,
A bean-dog rambling merrily.
Happy gardening to one and all,
At Trinity’s farm from now ‘til fall.

– Joyce Green, April 20, 2015

Sacred Ground is dialogue series on race, grounded in faith. Small groups are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race, racism, and whiteness while weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity. The 10-part series is built around a powerful online curriculum of documentary films and readings that focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American histories as they intersect with European American histories.

Sacred Ground is a resource coming out of Becoming Beloved Community, The Episcopal Church’s long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice in our personal lives, our ministries, and our society. This series is especially designed to help white people talk with other white people, while being open to all racial/ethnic groups. Participants are invited to peel away the layers that have contributed to the challenges and divides of the present day – all while grounded in our call to faith, hope and love.