Community Partner:
Our Daily Bread, located in the heart of Over the Rhine, was founded in 1985 with the mission of providing stability and a sense of belonging to residents and those who frequent the area by offering meals, hospitality, and social services. Our Daily Bread served their first meals on January 26, 1985. Its founder, Ruth “Cookie” Vogelpohl, had been serving at the Franciscan Friars on Liberty Street in 1980 when she witnessed firsthand the impact of food insecurity in the neighborhood. Over the next five years, Cookie built up the infrastructure and resources to ultimately establish what is now Cincinnati’s largest soup kitchen.
Our Daily Bread works to serve the neighborhood by feeding physical hunger in a welcoming environment that serves as a community hub. The Soup Kitchen feeds 500+ hot meals per week, in addition to distributing shelf-stable bagged meals. Our Daily Bread provides support in navigating social services to acquire basic needs such as shelter, food, clothing, and job readiness training, to name a few. Additionally, they host local organizations to offer their services and provide harm reduction and hygiene supplies. The mission of Our Daily Bread is to provide these resources while practicing radical hospitality to those they serve and honoring the dignity and humanity in each of their guests.
About Jaclyn
Jaclyn Youngs grew up in South Bend, Indiana. She attended Indiana University Bloomington for her undergraduate degree in Intelligent Systems Engineering before coming to Cincinnati for medical school. Jaclyn will be applying to anesthesiology residency.
Jaclyn chose this elective after positive experiences with food insecurity service and advocacy; in college serving the food insecurity needs of the elderly population and the first year of medical school with an area food bank. Seeing the impacts of physical manifestations of the stresses of homelessness as a detriment to healing after a procedure or hospitalization inspired her to pursue further service and advocacy course work in preparation for her career.