Soups on

Rally for the Tally puts soup on the shelves at LIFE

By Chuck Gibson

LOVELAND, OH (November 20, 2024) – They called it “Rally for the Tally” after a last-minute plea from LIFE Food Pantry for some fall season help, Loveland High School’s Tiger’s Inc. rallied to come up with a canned soup collection and more to help fill the shelves at LIFE.

In partnership with Art Jarvis and Jarvis Global Investment (JGI), LHS students with Tigers Inc. organized a winter/basketball season campaign to donate canned soup and raise funds for the LIFE Food Pantry each of the past several years. They call it “3’s for LIFE”. That campaign has brought in thousands of cans of soup each year along with more than a thousand dollars in cash donations to help fill the shelves at the Loveland community food pantry. This year the fall football season brought that last-minute plea for help. Tigers Inc and JGI responded led by LHS seniors Will Bertoli and George Timman. 

“LIFE Food Pantry reached out to us and said ‘hey, we’re in need’ end of fall right around Thanksgiving time,” said Bertoli. “They reached out to Mr. Jarvis and asked: ‘What can you do to help us?’”

Will and George met with Mr. Jarvis. He assured them he’d be there to help, but also gave the project to them.

“Me and George came up with the fall sports canned soup drive,” Bertoli explained.

The two LHS seniors wasted no time getting creative and employing their high school sports conference (EEC) using the conference website points ranking system to set up a cans-for-points system with 24 cans donated for each point.

“We ended up with right around 75 points this year in the ECC which is a great year for us,” Bertoli said. “That’s where Mr. Jarvis’ very generous donation came in with 24 cans per point which got us right above 1,700 cans.”

That was not all. They had various fundraisers setting up outside football games, soccer matches and cross country meets collecting cans and monetary donations through Venmo and cash. Their favorite was the Jarvis Global Field Goal Challenge.

“This is where we got our students involved,” said Bertoli. “We sat outside our lunchroom and sold raffle tickets; a dollar a ticket and if you got your name drawn you won a $100 Amazon Gift Card guaranteed.”

Then at halftime of the final two home football games one lucky winner for each game had the opportunity to go out on the field and attempt a 25-yard field goal to win a Raising Canes gift basket. Bertoli says that got the kids going. In the end one student missed on the FG attempt while Ryan Ashby, in the final home game, “drilled the field goal” for the Canes gift basket. All in all, the “Rally for the Tally” campaign by Tigers Inc in partnership with JGI delivered an estimated 3,200 cans of soup, including the 1,728 cans donated by Jarvis Global Investment, and over $1,200 in monetary donations. The overall success left a strong impression on Bertoli and Timman.

“It meant a lot,” said Timman. “Especially because in the beginning it was all on us. There was nothing last year we could continue this year. We had to brainstorm, come up with an idea, come up with a name. We landed on Rally for the Tally. Seeing it now, the whole thing come through, meeting our goal, because we had a goal of 3,000, and hitting that goal means a lot; especially seeing those cans in person knowing how many families it’s going to impact.”

If they buried the 3 in the 3’s for LIFE campaigns past, they drilled the field goal on this Rally for the Tally campaign.

“Yeah, we drilled it,” Timman said. “Especially with this being the first year as a canned drive, it was a big success.”

Seeing the joyous reaction by LIFE Food Pantry when they arrived to deliver the 3,200 cans was special too.

“It’s also super-cool they were super-happy to see us,” Bertoli summed up their feelings. “Just walking in seeing all the families out there waiting to get their groceries just to feed their families; it’s just really important in our community we have a food pantry to support these families. It means a lot seeing all those people out there we know we’re going to help with the cans we just donated.”

Both Bertoli and Timman expressed their own joy in seeing the happiness on the faces of the LIFE Food Pantry workers and the families there to be served. They are seniors and won’t be back next year, but they are passing the torch to the next Tigers Inc. leaders.

“It’ll happen next year,” said Timman. “They’ll carry it on and hopefully it keeps becoming more and more cans and a bigger success.”

It was already a huge success according to LIFE Food Pantry Executive Director Linda Bergholz who witnessed the delivery during the morning Tuesday, November 19th. She knows what it means to the community LIFE serves. She also knows she can reach out to Tigers Inc and JGI and count on a great response.

“They’re great kids,” said Bergholz. “I can always count on the Tigers Inc group because these are some of the most amazing young people the pantry has worked with. I give the kids from Tigers Inc an immense round of applause.”

Bergholz takes into account they have a lot of students from LHS that come in and volunteer for a variety of things. She credits them all as “amazing kids”. Then there’s the equally amazing efforts and support from Art Jarvis and Jarvis Global Investments.

“You reach out to Art and say we need XYZ and he’ll say okay, got it,” Bergholz said. “So, the response was so much more than I expected because it was short notice.”

They were already into football season when Bergholz reached out with the request for fall help leading up to this Thanksgiving time delivery. Art responded with a “no problem” and she didn’t hear anything more leaving her thinking they would only be able to collect some. And then…

“He sent me a picture and I went oh my God,” she explained. “Soup is one of the big things our families want especially this time of year. It’s filling, warm, kids will eat it; put it with a grilled cheese sandwich. Our senior citizens don’t want to eat a lot sometimes. Soup is kind of the universal comfort food. Having that much is amazing.”

Bergholz is truly grateful for the partnership of JGI with the schools, the students and the impact it has in helping them understand the need and help fill it.

“The combination of the kids working for the pantry and the kids understanding the need is what is so important,” Bergholz said. “In wintertime, soups, stew, chili; those kind of things just fly off the shelves. This will all be gone by the time the next one comes around after basketball season. We are so grateful for all the donors we have now.”

Rally for the Tally fast facts:

• 3,200 canned soup goods donated & delivered to LIFE Food Pantry
• 1,728 of the canned soup goods donated by Jarvis Global Investments (JGI)
• More than $1,200 cash funds raised and donated to LIFE
• Field Goal Challenge helped engage LHS students in the Rally for the Tally effort

More about Loveland Schools at: www.lovelandschools.org

Follow Tigers Inc on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TigersIncorporated

More on LIFE Food Pantry at: https://lifefoodpantry.org/

Visit Jarvis Global Investments, LLC at: https://www.jarvisglobalinvestments.com/