Around Christmas and Thanksgiving she always made sure people had food even if it meant getting up at midnight to take someone something.

by David Miller

Loveland, Ohio – During the 1980s recession, Eleanor Baker founded the Loveland Free Store in a tiny extension of the laundry room at the MacArthur Park Apartments on Park Avenue. The Loveland Free Store had humble beginnings and purpose. Eleanor started giving people the food out of her own cabinet and then got other people involved. People in the complex would often have bare pantries, and other tenants sometimes had a little something extra. Moms brought what they could to the laundry room and shared with the other moms so their friend’s children and the elderly would have food to eat.

The laundry room quickly became inadequate when the broader community found out what Eleanor was doing, chipped in and helped her collect food and daily necessities. The program grew and soon began organizing during Thanksgiving and Christmas to provide meals and presents for children. The Loveland Firefighters Association gave them space to operate from their Loveland Firefighter’s Hall at the intersection of St. Rt. 48, Broadway, and Second Street (the 5-Way intersection in Historic Downtown). Eventually, the Firefighters sold their building and it was demolished when the intersection was re-configured to what you see there today.

Unable to find a new “home” the Loveland Free Store closed in 1999. Several months later the community was called together to resurrect a program that was so vital to community life and thus, the L.I.F.E. Food Pantry was founded.

Over the years, Baker assisted un-told thousands of Loveland area residents when they faced economic hardship. She never had a normal Christmas in those days, because her months and even weeks after Christmas was spent collecting toys, food, turkeys, hams, and Christmas trees for people that didn’t have much during the holidays. Because Eleanor knew so many people, she became the go-to person for people having hard times as well as the economically affluent who had more than they needed and wanted to share their prosperity. For instance, Eleanor would know the boy scouts in town who were selling Christmas trees and knew that as Christmas Eve approached they would be willing to donate trees that otherwise would have sat un-sold on their lots. If the trees needed decorations, she found someone to donate those also – and knew someone with a pick-up or empty trunk who would gladly offer their Santa’s sled for delivery.

The days before Christmas Eve was chaotic at the Fireman’s Hall as volunteers came to help. They shlepped the donated presents and food up the steep steps to the Hall, sorted them, and helped carry overloaded, heavy boxes and bags back down those steps to an awaiting stream of parked cars lining O’Bannon Avenue below. Eleanor knew the people she was helping. She knew who was elderly. She knew the young moms and their children. She knew if there was a grandparent in their home and that they would appreciate some extra food or a thoughtful Christmas present. She ensured the bags and boxes were custom filled because she knew how many children were in households, and their ages.

Eleanor worked year-around providing essential food during a time the entire nation was suffering a recession and was aware of how deeply it affected her friends. Loveland Free Store volunteers made regular trecks to Downtown Cincinnati bringing back truck-loads of surplus U.S. Government USDA commodities. Peanut butter, butter, rice, and “government cheese”. The Loveland Free Store, saved lives when it became an unofficial distribution point of the federal food program.