by David Miller

Loveland, Ohio – After it was announced that the Loveland schools were going into asynchronous learning for two days just ahead of the MLK Holiday break, to try to stem the tide of the COVID 19 outbreak in classrooms and among staff, a few hard-working parents went to work. They wanted to show their LOVEland LOVE to teachers and staff the day when students returned to in-person learning – the day after the holiday.

A call was put out to collect donations of money and local goodies so the staff and teachers would know they are loved and appreciated for their dedication to our children.

“We had an incredible outpouring of love from our community this morning for our teachers and staff at LCSD. The support came entirely from parents and families in the community,” said a statement by the organizers.

600 staff across all schools were supported.

“First and foremost – THANK YOU for so generously volunteering your time to help us succeed at showing our appreciation to all the staff members of LCSD. We could not have done this without the many hands you’re providing. Our community came through so strong with supporting this and it’s been such a pleasure to work with Erin and Becca to organize this! Our local businesses are grateful for our support of them in this mission to support our schools, overall an entire community support drive! It’s been an amazing couple of days…. COUPLE OF DAYS – with YOUR help we are getting this done in just a couple of days!”

Andrea Kimmey

Within just 5 days and over a couple of conversations, the idea blossomed into over $2,500 in contributions for our schools.

Our amazing educators, bus drivers, and support staff have been stressed physically and emotionally from the toll of the pandemic. This was a way our community could say they are not forgotten or unappreciated. The community could show support even in a gesture like coffee and donuts. We hope it brightened their day and let them all know how much their community rallies behind them.

“Donations were provided through Venmo and PayPal by the caring families, parents, and community in Loveland. With such a generous contribution, we have funding to do this again and be able to support local business at the same time,” said Becca Moates.

Even though many community members may have differing views of how these past two years should have been handled – one thing we can certainly come together about is kindness and supporting the staff of Loveland schools. And that is what #beLOVEland is all about.

The organizers got up bright and early in the AM with a group of super volunteers to pick up coffee and deliver both coffee and donuts to each school and the central office. Transportation had their own event with goody bags handcrafted by students and organized by Katie Smyth.

Our local Businesses stood up and supported providing coffee and donuts. A special thanks to:

• Blossim Donuts in Montgomery (new!), owned by Natalie Blomer.

• Our very own Hometown Cafe owned by The Hooper Family.

• Mile 42 owned by Tim Butler

• And Biggby’s Coffee in Loveland franchised locally

Volunteers included (but not an exhaustive list) Andrea Kimmey (organized and ran logistics), Erin Mix (organizer), Becca Moates (organizer), Katie Smyth (organizer), Kris Stapleton, Tara Hamilton, Laurie Hyrne, Lara Ferrer, Julianne Dominguez, Sharon Shepherd, and Liz Goldschmidt. Each of them arrived early, picking up and delivering the goodies to each school.

SAW Pilates instructor Tara Hamilton said, “LIS/LMS said they were so excited for this and they were beyond appreciative. Thanks so much for all of your work. Such a great thing for our staff.”

Photos provided by organizers.

Andrea Kimmey said, “Our community came through so strong with supporting this and it’s been such a pleasure to work with Erin Mix and Becca Moates organizing this. Our local businesses were also grateful for the support of them in this mission to support our schools, overall an entire community support drive. It was an amazing couple of days.”

A Google Doc was used for organizing pickup and delivery assignments and ended with this note to the volunteers:

THANK YOU ALL, FOR SO GENEROUSLY VOLUNTEERING YOUR TIME TO HELP US SEND A “HUG” TO OUR STAFF MEMBERS AND SHARE OUR SUPPORT FOR ALL OF THEM! YOU ARE ALL THE VERY MEANING OF KINDNESS AND COMMUNITY. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Thank you all #beLOVEland community!