Saturday, July 18th, will mark the Grand Opening of HempSpot in Willowick!

From 10 am to 2, located on 28801 Lakeshore Blvd, HempSpot will be opening their doors to offer residents an affordable alternative to having a healthy lifestyle.

There will also be a fitness class at 10:30 with Cleveland Holtist winner GI Jayne along with giveaways for everyone that purchases a product that day.

HempSpot will offer a variety of CBD and Hemp products such as protein bars, drinks, food, and more!

Founder Brian Lytle and Chief Operating Officer Chad Gourley want residents to have every opportunity to learn more about what they can do to help themselves.

Lytle and Gourley, both coming from professional wellness and marketing backgrounds, came together to bring this idea to life in Willowick. After researching CBD and Hemp's benefits, they both wanted to bring that to their communities' attention and offer a platform for education.

"My background is in the wellness industry before I got into the CBD industry. I had a personal training company. I treat people in different studios, or at their house, while I was training I stumbled across CBD," says Lytle.

After being informed by a colleague about all the benefits to CBD, Lytle was still hesitant in the beginning. "My perspective was that it was bad, it was drugs, so I didn't pay it much attention. Then I started doing more research and was an anti-inflammatory, and some of the clients I was working with had inflammation of the gut, called a leaky gut syndrome."

"So I started giving it (CBD) to them, and after about a month, their discomfort started going away. So I thought it might be something to this, and I started to do even more research on CBD, and have become almost evangelical about it."

"Part of my mission is to educate people, the retail store came about because I wanted a platform to talk to people and help them understand what CBD and Hemp are and how it can help," he continued.

So what exactly is CBD? What is Hemp?

Kathleen Felton, a writer for Health.com, wrote that CBD is short for cannabidiol. It is a chemical compound from the Cannabid Sativa plant, which is also known as marijuana or help, according to the US National Library of Medicine.

It's a naturally occurring substance that's used in products like oils and edibles to impart a feeling of relaxation and calm. Unlike its cousin, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the primary active ingredient in marijuana, CBD is not psychoactive.

Hemp, according to Aaron Cadena of Medium.com, is a term used to classify varieties of Cannabis that contain 0.3% or less THC content (by dry weight).

It has generally been used to describe non-intoxicating Cannabis that is harvested for the industrial use of its derived products.

For this and many other reasons, Lytle and Gourley have chosen to build a business model around Hemp and CBD as an alternative for health and wellness. As to why they decided Willowick-- the answer was simple, its where they are from.

"I live in Willowick, Chad used to live in Willowick, I have a family here and personally want to contribute to a city that has a lot of potential," Lytle says.

"We want to be that spark. We want to give back and be apart of a community that could thrive, but just isn't' thriving yet," he continued.

Gourley, also the creator of LiveWell Willoughby, has always wanted to inspire and engage with his community. He added, "We've come together about what we want HempSpot to be, a voice and platform to educate. At our grand opening, you're going to see things people can take with them to help educate them on what CBD is and how they can take it, they can also see what Hemp is. They are the same, but separate. On our shelves, you'll see there is Hemp protein, that doesn't have CBD in it, but Hemp protein is a complete protein, which is very hard to do in a plant-based side of things. There's a lot of education that we have to do."

"One of our goals is to get Hemp on the food pyramid," he continued.

But after shortly securing their space, COVID spread nationwide, and many businesses had to close.

"It's been rough; for me, all around it had a huge negative impact on my business, in one part," says Lytle.

Gourley added, "It definitely at first was like wow, how are we going to overcome this?"

"Especially because we had just actually secured this location, like two weeks before COVID hit, and suddenly everything is getting shut down," he continued.

"Luckily, things have opened up a bit so we can do our grand opening."

Lytle and Gourley are taking every precaution in the effort of social distancing for their opening on July 18th.

"We'll have masks there, hand sanitizer, so people feel comfortable. We'll make sure we'll let people know we're not enforcing it on anyone, but if they chose, we'll have markers for it so they can feel comfortable. We are taking all precautions," Lytle says.

Gourley says residents should come out because HempSpot isn't your typical CBD shop. "There's a lot of CBD shops in the area, and this isn't just a CBD shop. It's helpful for people to understand there is coffee, ice cream, healthy snack protein bars, even Hemp pastas coming in."

"Our whole focus is on wellness and helping people have sustainable health in their lives and build better lifestyles."

HempSpot is also hiring for consultants, for more information follow their page on Facebook.

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HempSpot coming to Willowick - News-Herald.com