Our History

Well…sort of.

It started in the early 2000s, when now Executive Director, Zac Kohl, attended Akron’s First Presbyterian Church, investing in neighborhood programs and developing a love for Middlebury. Seeing the neighborhood’s promise, years later he and his wife Beth purchased their Middlebury home. With a motivation to make a difference in their community, their circle supported the dream, leading to the purchase of the old First Presbyterian Church to begin The Well CDC.

As Akron’s original settlement, established as a milling town in 1807 by Joseph Hart, Middlebury is the east-side neighborhood of Akron that The Well CDC calls home. Growth fueled by the foundation of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co, along with other rubber companies at the turn of the 20th century led to a bustling commercial strip along East Market Street, along with an explosion of homes and neighborhood development.

As the rubber industry began to decline in the 70s, economic opportunity fled Middlebury just as fast as it came, plummeting employment rates and housing stock. The subsequent decades of disinvestment left houses in disarray and few businesses to drive the local economy. Despite being situated between to anchor institutions, Summa Health and Goodyear’s world headquarters, Middlebury has become a forgotten neighborhood.

That’s where The Well CDC comes in. What began as a desire to address the housing crisis in Middlebury, quickly turned into an understanding that housing was only one piece of the puzzle. A healthy neighborhood requires stable housing at it’s core, but as we began to work in the community, the ecosystem led us to the need for more programs to address other systemic issues.