Special to NKyTribune
Our Daily Bread, Cincinnati’s largest soup kitchen, reopened today — on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day — as a visible reminder that violence does not stop love.
Our Daily Bread was the site of a deadly shooting last January. The agency has been closed since that day in order to provide trauma counseling to staff and institute new security features designed to prevent future violence. While this was an unprecedented and isolated domestic violence occurrence, the need for increased security procedures has become evident.
“Our founder, Cookie Vogelpohl, created Our Daily Bread as a place of stability and hope,” said Georgine Getty, Executive Director of Our Daily Bread.
“While we will continue to serve that role for the community, our guests, volunteers and staff were badly shaken by the event. In order to restore stability, we are instituting some very visible security measures so that everyone who seeks us, may feel secure while in our building. We just want to get back to doing what we do: feeding people and providing a safe gathering space.”
New security measures include two contracted security personnel who will “wand” each visitor to check for weapons and store each visitor’s belongings in a secured area until they are ready to leave the building.
Trauma specialists as well as trained Our Daily Bread staff and volunteers will be available to help guests of the soup kitchen process the violence that they witnessed last year.
Over 100 guests were in the building at the time of the shootings.
Our Daily Bread is Cincinnati’s largest soup kitchen, serving between 400-500 meals per day, Monday – Friday. In addition, Our Daily Bread also provides social work services and Kid’s Club, and after school program.
In continuous operation since 1985, Our Daily Bread remains a beacon of Stability and Hope in Over the Rhine.
