NEWS

Columbus Muslim service organization opens new food market, youth center in Hilltop

Danae King
The Columbus Dispatch
As they prepare to open the Mid-Ohio Market inside MY Project USA's Youth Empowerment Center in the Hilltop, Abdi Yerrow and Sahra Isaak sort through pallets of food donated by the Mid-Ohio Food Collective Tuesday.

When people walk into the new Hilltop Youth Empowerment Center on Sullivant Avenue, brightly colored walls, lots of light and a large meeting space greet them. 

A little further in, past a waiting room, is a five-aisle free market crowded with food and personal hygiene items. There are boxes of fresh cucumbers in one aisle, containers of macaroni and cheese lined up in another and freezers — one stacked to the brim with potato salad — lining the walls. 

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It's a sharp contrast to the center's old location down the street, which was fronted by a thrift store with just a small space for food in the back. It lacked any gathering space and had little room for food products.

Both spaces are projects of MY Project USA, a nonprofit Muslim social service organization that helps youth and families, but the differences are obvious.

The new facility offers the food market, a gathering space for community meetings, a full kitchen, laundry room, reading area, conference room and much more.

MY Project USA founder and executive director Zerqa Abid recently opened a Youth Empowerment Center in the Hilltop.

The center doubles as a new headquarters for the organization, founded six years ago by president and executive director Zerqa Abid. She said she had the vision for the new location since before she founded MY Project USA (myprojectusa.org). 

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To her, it's a "game-changer" to see it come to fruition in the form of 10,000 square feet of space for the Hilltop community, especially its youth.

Abid partnered with the Mid-Ohio Food Collective to open the market earlier this month and, on Tuesday, Flavia Pool, 62, was shopping for her household, which includes her sister and a friend.

Flavia Pool shops for groceries recently at the Mid-Ohio Market inside MY Project USA's Youth Empowerment Center in the Hilltop. She said she likes it more than then one at the nonprofit's previous location.

She grabbed some cucumbers, shredded cheese, spaghetti, tonic water and carrots, among other items as she rolled a cart through the small market. 

Pool went to the previous location of MY Project USA and said people had to wait outside for food. She like's this location — which is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays — better. It has a waiting area inside, it's own parking lot and a grassy area out front if people get there before it opens.

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"It's so much better," she said. "It's nice. There are nice people here. ... This helps me so much."

The market opened on Sept. 10 at 3275 Sullivant Ave. near Westgate Park and, beyond offering food, it's intended to be a haven for local at-risk youths, especially those who live in the nearby Wedgewood Village Apartments complex. 

Estimated to be home to nearly 2,000 children, the complex suffered seven homicides in 2017. Abid aims to help children living there avoid human trafficking, gangs and other dangers.

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Gulled Osman, 14, used to be one of the kids at risk.

But two years ago he started playing with the Hilltop Tigers soccer program, run through MY Project USA even before the new center opened. The coaches have helped him with his homework and his grades went up; this summer he started working at the new center to clean up outside and do odd jobs for Abid.

To Osman, the center already feels like another home.

"I like being able to come here and just chill with my friends," he said. "It's like having your own home. You can just come here and have fun."

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And, for the Tigers, it's also a place to store their soccer gear, wash jerseys and change before and after games — something they had to do outside before the center opened. 

"For many years, we had problems with locations and gathering youth together," said Siyat Mohamed, who founded the team. "This building is a sense of belonging and home. ... There's a place they can turn to in a time of need."

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Although city officials have been supportive with some funding, the center needs more to hire people to help, Abid said. The center is run almost entirely by volunteers, but they are getting tired and qualified, paid positions are needed, she said.

Abid said she hopes to have enough money at some point to hire an executive director to replace her when she retires. It takes $1 million a year to run the center and provide the community with the activities and food that it does, she said.

Najma Shamsi works to sort clothes for incoming Afghan refugees behind MY Project USA founder and executive director Zerqa Abid at the organization's new Youth Empowerment Center.

No matter what, Abid said she will always have food available for area kids to snack on while at the center.

"My dream is I want to make sure no one on Sullivant Avenue goes hungry," Abid said. "We want to make sure we have hot meals."

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She's working to get city funding to do so in the new space's full kitchen.

At MY Project USA's previous location, at 3036 Sullivant Ave., people would always ask for food and she would give them what she had, but many had no place to cook.

To help, she also envisions a patio where the center can host neighborhood BBQs outside for community members. And she'd like to partner with a local restaurant to make hot food for area people as well.

MY Project USA, a nonprofit social service organization that helps youth and families, recently opened the Youth Empowerment Center in the Hilltop.

Downstairs offers potential, too, including areas for a reading literacy program and places to host English classes, financial literacy classes, job training, college mentoring and career counseling an.

Abid sees one of the offices being occupied by a local doctor who can run a small clinic, screening people for high blood pressure and more. There's also a space being used as a community garden in the back, where people who were formerly enslaved in Somalia will be among those who teach children how to garden.

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The youth empowerment center is the only one of its kind in Columbus, Abid said.

"I felt if I want to save children from traffickers and drug dealers and pimps, it has to be where they are," she said. "We have to go into the inner city."

Photos of MY Project USA service projects adorn the walls of its new Youth Empowerment Center.

And like Osman said, Abid wants the center to be like a home for area children.

"Everything's in one place and when they walk in, they see people like themselves," she said.

dking@dispatch.com

@DanaeKing