That’s why this new initiative is so welcomed to a blighted area of Cleveland.

The Bridgeport Café opened last week in the 7200 block of Kinsman Road. It’s the first phase of a community development project to improve nutrition in the neighborhood and provide access to a fresh-food grocer in Cleveland’s Ward 5.

What makes this new non-profit endeavor so meaningful is that it will provide nutritious fruits and vegetables to an underserved population that does not have access to such products unless they go more than a mile to obtain such sustenance.

Many in that area of Cleveland don’t have ready access to private transportation. Taking public transport to stores that carry such products can be time consuming and arduous.

Having the Bridgeport Café is just the answer.

Burten, Bell and Carr Development Inc., a community-development corporation, won a five-year-$795,00 federal grant last year to create the fresh-food production center where the café is also located.

In addition to the café, the facility includes cold storage where gardeners can clean and store produce and a community kitchen where a few cooking and nutrition demonstrations can be held.

It has been said “you are what you eat.”

That saying is just as true today as it was when it first came out in African-American communities during the heyday of the Nation of Islam.

Our elderly need fresh fruits and vegetables to supplement their diets.

The same goes for young children in their formative years.

Quite frankly, fresh produce is good for us all.

That’s why this new initiative is so welcomed to a blighted area of Cleveland.

We wish them well and would hope that ALL Clevelanders support this new offering.