Toronto homes are now displaying glowing neon hearts in their Windows
When the pandemic struck Canada in March 2020 so many industries were shut down and ours was no exception. Our company, MossLED supplies LED lights to the film and television industry. While we technically were not forced to close our doors, the industry that the majority of customers worked in were not operating.
While having no customers and no business was challenging for our company it also gave us an opportunity to reflect on what we could do to give back to our community and also hopefully save our business and keep our staff working.
In an effort to maintain operations we decided to pivot the company into building neon hearts for customers to put into their windows of their homes and condos. The first step was purchasing a CNC machine to cut the wood frames out and we purchased a small one from a company in Waterloo, Ontario called Sienci Labs. It took several weeks for it to arrive and once it did we wasted no time prototyping the hearts.
It took us a couple months of troubleshooting and trying different designs and build methods in order for us to perfect it. By this point it was July, 2020 and my immediate neighbours had started asking us where they could purchase a heart. We told them our story and suddenly a dozen homes around us all had glowing neon hearts in their windows. Passers by would stop and admire them, children would count them and teenagers would take selfies with them. It seemed everyone loved the hearts but no one knew where to get one. We would have people coming to our doors to ask where they could purchase one.
Finally at the end of November, 2020 I posted onto our community Facebook group about the hearts to let people know what they were about, who was building them, and where they could purchase on. Hours later we had hundreds of orders. The next day, a Monday, we had a company wide meeting to discuss how we were going to build hundreds of hearts in the next week. Later that same morning without us knowing, BlogTO ran an article on the hearts and we had hundreds more orders. To say we were shocked, and overwhelmed was an understatement.
The next morning we had a company wide meeting about how we were going to build 500 hearts in the next couple weeks and immediately started the wheels in motion.
Two days later, CityNews Toronto showed up at our house and requested an interview.
The following day after the CityNews piece we were reeling from even more orders. Our team was amazed at the support of the community and we quickly ramped up building the hearts. In the afternoon the same day I was contacted by CBC Toronto and requested an interview regarding the hearts. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to discuss the hearts on live national television I said yes. I knew full-well that our team was already scrambling to build as many hearts as we possibly could and I updated our website in big bold red letters saying that the hearts were delayed by 2-3 weeks.
The CBC Morning Live interview was a great success and launched the neon hearts campaign nation-wide. We had orders as far west as Victoria, British Columbia and as far east as St. John's, Newfoundland and as far north as Yellowknife, North West Territories.
Over the next 3 weeks leading up to Christmas we managed to build and ship close to 1000 hearts. We prioritized getting hearts out the door to anyone that we couldn't personally deliver to as the major couriers (Canada Post/Fedex/UPS etc.) were all experiencing large delays. My partner, Quincy and I, also set out to hand-delivering hearts after work every evening between the hours of 6 and 9PM. As well we delivered hearts every Saturday & Sunday leading up to Christmas.
We successfully delivered and shipped out close to 1000 hearts from not having ever made more than 50 hearts prior to the end of November. It was a hectic few weeks to say the least but it was worth it, and given the opportunity, would do it all again. The glowing hearts are a symbol of love, support & respect which builds neighbourhoods and communities. I'm so proud of our glowing hearts product and our amazing team who builds them.