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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2020 | BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS | PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
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Local nonprofi t launches ‘Masks For All’ campaign Sew Valley partners with Urban League Madeline Mitchell Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil adjusts his hat on the head of his newly adopted son, Sebastian. PHOTOS BY CAMERON KNIGHT/THE ENQUIRER
‘I THINK IT WAS MEANT TO BE’
Sheriff Neil and his wife adopt 2 boys after years of quietly caring for them Cameron Knight Cincinnati Enquirer
H
USA TODAY NETWORK
amilton County Sheriff Jim Neil has quietly been caring for two young brothers for more than fi ve years. On Thursday, he and his wife Kim adopted them. The couple never had children of their own. The sheriff is retired and this is his last term in offi ce after losing the Democratic primary this year. The boys are six and seven. “Sheriff , you’re busy enough, but at the young age of 62 to adopt,” Hamilton County Probate Judge Ralph Winkler said. “You’re kind of an overachiever.” The older boy, Sebastian, donned Jim sheriff ’s hat until the proceeding started. After the introduction by the judge’s clerk, Rick Compton, he raised his hand and waited.
“I like your suit,” he told Compton. Neil told The Enquirer that their journey to this day started about 25 years ago. Jim was a deputy and Kim and working at a West Side Hollywood Video. They lived in a 950-square-foot Sears and Roebuck kit house that they bought from the original owners in Sayler Park. They still live there today and have no plans to move. One of Kim’s coworkers needed a place to stay. He was 18 when he moved in. He stayed in a room in the home’s fi nished basement for more than fi ve years. Neil and the teen had a common connection. His father was a Cincinnati homicide detective, a man who once handled the investigation of an offi cerinvolved shooting that Neil was a part of. “It’s a small world,” Neil said. “I think it was meant to be.” Years later in 2012, the teen who once lived with the Neils had a son of his own. Jim and Kim were at the hospital on Christmas Eve when Sebastian was born and became unoffi cial godparents. See ADOPTION, Page 2A
Sew Valley co-founders say they’ve manufactured over 10,000 masks this year – and they aren’t stopping any time soon. The non-profi t organization specializing in sustainable apparel and manufacturing shut down in March with the majority of other Ohio businesses. Long before Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued a mask mandate, CEO Rosie Kovacs had already begun prototyping mask designs. “We basically evolved from doing small-batch apparel, kind of, you know, project by project, to now we have... I guess you could say we have two departments,” Kovacs said. “It’s just another arm to the business.” Sew Valley now off ers three diff erent styles of their 100% cotton fabric face masks, which COO Shailah Maynard says they can produce by the thousand for large company orders, or sell individually online. Sew Valley masks are blue with black ties, Maynard said. They are recognizable to the Sew Valley family, and Maynard says she sees them around the city sometimes. The masks are reusable. Not like those disposable blue masks she often sees, which Maynard says are becoming a problem. “(They’re) washing up in the oceans and are, you know, aff ecting animals and the environment. So it is a new product that is everywhere, like I see them on the street and (in) the trash all the time,” Maynard said. Sew Valley also works with clients to make custom masks and other PPE items, like gowns for healthcare facilities. Their gowns are launderable, Kovacs said, and being tested now at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. “Which, I will say, is really cool because their whole entire facility is operated on disposable, and this is giving them an opportunity to transition into a reusable, launderable process,” Kovacs said. See SEW VALLEY, Page 3A
Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil and his wife, Kim, adopted two boys Thursday after raising them for more than fi ve years.
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Evan Neal, project manager at Sew Valley, cuts pieces of cotton to make masks at Sew Valley in the West End on Wednesday, May 20. MEG VOGEL/ THE ENQUIRER
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