Shalira Taylor is a former Republican congressional candidate for District 11 and ward leader in Ward 6. As the quarantine commenced, Taylor began to see that families were finding it difficult to feed their children while they were out of school. She got to work by contacting Gov. Mike DeWine and his constituents to make them aware of what was going on in the community.
Enter Ebony Spano, who was a part of a community initiative called Babies and Brunch, which began to help distribute breakfast and lunch to kids in need by traveling to the 22 sites designated by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
Taylor reached out to people on her email list and requested that if any of them needed assistance with getting food, to let her know. Taylor then partnered with University Settlement, a nonprofit and member of the Welfare Federation of Cleveland that serves Cleveland’s Broadway-Slavic Village area, which handled the packaging of the food that she then delivered.
After that, she learned that some of the Cleveland Food Bank partners needed drivers. During the quarantine, Taylor and others went out once a week to carry boxes and have continued to supply those once a month.
Many politicians “play political games, and the people are just the pawns,” Taylor says. Like all of our Cleveland COVID-19 heroes, she found a need and inserted herself anywhere she could to be of service.