Riddle Funeral Home remains open

Services consolidated, not stopping

Riddle Funeral Home & Cremation Services has consolidated its Lorain operations into the Vermilion business, but it is not closing or reducing its services.

Riddle Funeral Home has donated the former Dombrowski-Riddle Funeral Home & Cremation Center, 1939 Oberlin Ave., to Let’s Get Real Inc., a nonprofit recovery community organization.

However, Riddle Funeral Home has absorbed the Lorain business into its Vermilion location, said Mark Riddle, secretary-treasurer of the family-owned business.

The Vermilion location, 5345 South St., remains open to work with the families and churches of Lorain, Riddle said.

Let’s Get Real Inc. will move its headquarters from Vermilion to Lorain this year.

The leaders of the nonprofit recovery community organization credited the generosity of Mark Riddle and the Riddle family.

“How huge is that? How giving is that, really?” said Kim Eberle, Let’s Get Real executive director.

As a member of local civic groups, Riddle said the opioid addiction crisis comes up all the time in discussions.

Working with the funeral home, he said he has met families that have lost loved ones to overdose.

“To have to sit down with them is a terrible thing, for what they’ve gone through,” Riddle said. “If they can help one person get away from drug and alcohol addiction, it’s worth it.”

Riddle said he had no dramatic personal connection to Let’s Get Real, but began considering the donation when he spoke to Eberle at a local restaurant.

“It was strictly a decision based on need and an organization that hopefully can do some good,” he said. “It’s something that I feel is important. I hope that it will change some lives for the better.”