Full-service commercial kitchen supporting Neighborhood Alliance programming.
The Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen cooks and processes meals for every program that Neighborhood Alliance has to offer.
Whether it’s feeding our Little Learners at Child Enrichment Services, the homeless at Haven Emergency Shelter, families during Family STRONG meetings, or seniors whether it’s through our Mobile Seniors program or Home Delivered Meals, our Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen staff ensures healthy, quality meals at all stages in life and makes sure no individuals go hungry.
Food Pantry – SPORK OFF
First introduced March 29, 2023, this event began as a way to announce, utilize and celebrate the completion of our new commercial-grade Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen which serves over 360,000 meals a year to clients all over Lorain County by hosting a friendly chef’s competition.
To rewatch the live stream, click the button on the left.
Spork Off 2025 – Thank you for joining us!
Back by popular demand, Neighborhood Alliance’s Spork Off—the friendliest (and tastiest) showdown in town—made a return this April on a larger scale!! We transformed our Administration Building (the former Elyria YMCA) to accommodate the cooking competition and a unique fundraising experience. Our guests tasted and judged as three award-winning chefs: Chef Michael Castro – Modern Elegance Chefs; Chef Brandon Woodall Sr. – Valerie’s Kitchen & Catering; and Chef Jefe Seats – Chef Jefe Catering battled it out in our Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen to win our guests’ vote and the coveted Golden Spork Award!
The event helped us in meeting the critical needs of our community and 100% of proceeds feed directly back into the community through Neighborhood Alliance programming!
The Flex Farm
Neighborhood Alliance received a grant of $4995 from Bendix Commercial Vehicle System LLC to support the purchase of the FLEX FARM indoor vertical hydroponic technology. Each FLEX FARM unit can grow more than 394 pounds of produce annually. The ability to grow our produce will support our new high-volume Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen and help us triple the number of healthy meals produced each day compared to the capacity at the current location.
This innovative project will provide educational opportunities for our childcare centers and volunteer opportunities for the community while ensuring a plentiful bounty of fresh produce to be included in menu planning for our youth programs, Haven Center Emergency Shelter residents, and our older home-delivered meal clients.
** The indoor gardening project is housed at our Washington Avenue, Elyria location, home of the Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen.
Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen unveiled
Kevin Martin, The Chronicle-Telegram
Elyria: Neighborhood Alliance breaks in Nutrition Kitchen with cook off
Aliah Kimbro, The Morning Journal
Under Construction – 2022
Due to a very generous gift of a building in Elyria, the agency has the opportunity to expand the Senior Nutrition program by moving into a new kitchen. The Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen will allow for increased capacity for the Home Delivered Meals program as well as support a new full-service commercial catering program. Continuing to serve in the current “warming kitchen” configuration is not sustainable and kitchen expansion in the current location at 1536 East 30th Street, Lorain is not possible. In addition, the lack of cold storage capacity in the current location is a barrier to becoming a full-service commercial kitchen. Remodeling space at the Washington Avenue building into a full-service commercial kitchen and relocating the Senior Nutrition Program will increase not only capacity but efficiency as well.
The Neighborhood Nutrition Kitchen will offer over 2100 sq. ft of space designed for increased capacity and efficiency compared to the current 1400 sq. ft outdated East 30th Street, Lorain warming kitchen. This new commercial kitchen will have adequate storage for both perishables and non-perishables and by 2024 will have the ability to provide 9000 meals per week.
