{"id":340819,"date":"2026-07-15T12:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/340819\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T12:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:18:19","slug":"christian-service-center-closing-ocoee-campus-by-end-of-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/340819\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Service Center closing Ocoee campus by end of July"},"content":{"rendered":"

OCOEE, Fla. \u2014 The West Orange campus of the Christian Service Center for the Homeless<\/a> is closing its doors on Friday, July 31.<\/p>\n

The center will stop assistance, including the food pantry, computer lab and SNAP food-stamps services.<\/p>\n

Leaders within the organization said the decision to close has been looming for the past several years as the nonprofit has been running the facility at a budget deficit.<\/p>\n

With just a few weeks left, team members and volunteers at the West Orange campus are still showing up to help the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just doing the best that we can, with our clients here, our volunteers, and my goodness, they\u2019re so valuable, and we\u2019re so grateful for them,\u201d said Michelle Cancel, the interim director at the West Orange campus.<\/p>\n

The board of directors announced that the location at 300 W. Franklin Street in Ocoee will close its doors on Friday, July 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of our programs that are still running is our daily bread program. So right now, we are actually preparing for that. We serve, on average around 145 people daily within one hour. So that program right now is going to continue all the way to July 31st,\u201d Cancel said.<\/p>\n

At this location, they offered a variety of services, including a food pantry, clothing, housing services, hot lunch and meals every day, helping hundreds of people daily.<\/p>\n

\u201cClosing this campus,\u201d Cancel said. \u201cIt\u2019s really kind of hit some heart strings. Because before I worked here, I also volunteered here. Actually, before I volunteered here, I was actually a client. And that\u2019s how it started off. Me and my family were needing some assistance and came across Christian Service Center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Service center leaders said this was not an easy choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur board has really been navigating for a long time what to do with our Ocoee campus. And this is not a decision that we made quickly or took lightly,\u201d director of operations for the Christian Service Center for the Homeless Kristen Pena said.<\/p>\n

Pena said they had been facing financial constraints for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been operating really at a $300,000 a year plus deficit for the last couple of years. And we\u2019ve been able to cover that. But as we look at kind of the long-term stability of the organization or as that campus alone, we really just need to find different community support, long-term sustainability. And we haven\u2019t been able to find that in West Orange County,\u201d Pena said.<\/p>\n

After looking at every option, the organization decided closing the Ocoee location was the right move.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was really a tough decision because we know the problem is not getting better. It\u2019s actually getting worse. We\u2019re seeing homelessness numbers grow, particularly in West Orange County,\u201d Pena said.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the team has been working closely with all of its regular clients to make sure that they know where they can go to get these same services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a couple of other locations within a few miles of our Ocoee campus where they can get most of the services, if not all. And they also have access to come to our Orlando campus,\u201d Pena said.<\/p>\n

At their Orlando Campus in Parramore, they are open 7 days a week.<\/p>\n

Just last month, they opened this new pavilion and wellness center, where they offer medical assistance, legal services, and help with clothing and hygiene, as well as lunch and dinner.<\/p>\n

At any given day, Pena said they serve between 400 and 500 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still here to help. And we\u2019re still going to be able to connect people to any resources that are available in the area. So give us a call. We\u2019ll be happy to point you in the right direction,\u201d Pena said.<\/p>\n

Operations at the Ocoee Campus will end on July 31. The nonprofit\u2019s board of directors decided to sell the property.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OCOEE, Fla. \u2014 The West Orange campus of the Christian Service Center for the Homeless is closing its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[767,1011,1013,274,770,1190,766,115,1335,768,139,141,140,278],"class_list":["post-340819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-community","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-latest-human-interest-stories","tag-app-top-stories","tag-community-news","tag-human-interest","tag-massiel-leyva","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-fl","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}