Our History

Urban Ark began in the early 1980’s in the basement of Trinity Lutheran Church with the original name “TLC Center”, for the name Tender Loving Care.   It was the inspiration of Reverend John Bradosky.   It distributed food and clothing twice a week, run by Helen Spitzer handling the clothing and Mary Hahn taking care of food distribution.  Food was purchased from the Akron Canton Regional Food Bank with financial donations from Trinity and its members.  They also supplied other foods as well as clothing.

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In the early 1990’s Pastor John Mann was called to Trinity Lutheran, and he made it a priority of his ministry there.   Under his leadership the mission was renamed Urban Ark.  It continued to grow both in numbers served but also to include a hot meal served with a spiritual message on Sundays.  It was housed in the basement of Trinity Lutheran Church at 415 West Tuscarawas, and then moved to an annex of Trinity on McKinley Avenue, then to the former East Ohio Gas building at 332 Second Street NW with the intention of creating temporary housing for homeless men.  While the temporary housing mission never materialized, the food and clothing ministries continued to grow.  In 2009 the ministry was returned to the basement of Trinity, where it remained until Trinity’s merger with St. Stephen Martyr in 2011.  At that time it rented space at the former Martin Lutheran Church at 701 Walnut NE.  In April of 2022 it was blessed to be housed at Refuge of Hope.

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In April of 2023 food distribution changed from a prepacked concept to a “Client Choice” concept whereby the clients were given choice options rather than a prepacked bag of groceries.  Client census has risen steadily since this inception.