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Cocca Family separated with food bank for soup kitchen to prevail
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
Another soup kitchen is coming to Youngstown.
Anthony Cocca and his family assured the public Tuesday the new soup kitchen will open on Mahoning Avenue in the second quarter of this year.
But the Community Kitchen will open without the partnership of Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley.
Last week, Second Harvest announced it was no longer a part of the project because the Cocca family had decided to open the kitchen on its own.
Second Harvest was told the guidelines and best practices of the nonprofit and Feeding America were believed to be too rigid for the project.
“To say that our separation was based on the standards of food preparations is absurd,” the Anthony Cocca family wrote in an email sent out Tuesday. “Our vision is to give the community a kitchen where people would have a place to be treated with dignity and respect and a clean warm place to eat. We refused to have an institutional fenced property where people were expected to stand in the rain, heat or cold and wait until 10 minutes before serving times to be allowed to come into our facility because of guidelines set by others.”
Plans for the soup kitchen submitted by Boardman-based Cocca Development Ltd. to Youngstown’s Design Review Committee were approved in early February. The new soup kitchen will be built on land owned by the Anthony Cocca Family Foundation.
“It is regretful that the statements made are not the same as the recollection of our staff and applicable board members,” said Mike Iberis, food bank executive director, in a statement. “However, we are very pleased that another feeding site will soon be available to serve people in need.”
Second Harvest announced plans for a new soup kitchen in December after the nonprofit was pledged $750,000 from the Cocca family, initially an anonymous donor. The funds would be used to build, equip and maintain the kitchen.
Second Harvest’s initial understanding was the food bank would own and run the kitchen. The Anthony Cocca Family Foundation, however, established a no-cost lease arrangement for Second Harvest.
“It is unfortunate that Second Harvest will not be part of the operations,” the statement reads. “We do find it disappointing that Second Harvest broke the promise of keeping our specified donation anonymous.”
The Cocca family goes on to say it felt the need to separate ties with the food bank to “assure our vision of the Community Kitchen would prevail,” but the family did say the food bank is “an incredible organization and does very well at providing food to many charities that feed thousands of people.”
Ralph “Skip” Barone, former kitchen manager at St. Vincent De Paul Society on Front Street, will be the kitchen manager at the new soup kitchen.
Barone resigned from St. Vincent in late November after 13 years at the kitchen. After his resignation, volunteers upset with the leadership at the kitchen followed Barone. The kitchen was closed for one week until a new manager and an anonymous donor came forward to help feed hungry people who could not get a meal at the shuttered kitchen.
Not long after, Second Harvest announced the plans for the soup kitchen.
Barone is looking forward to seeing his old friends and providing a warm meal to those in need, he said. The new kitchen will incorporate the community and bring in other organizations to help.
Barone feels sorry the Cocca family has been identified when it wished to remain anonymous.
“They have been nothing but honest and upstanding and very committed, very committed to this project,” Barone said.