GARRETTSVILLE: Valentine’s Day traditionally reflects the love between two people.
This year, a tiny Portage County village is demonstrating the love of a community.
From red paper hearts covering restaurant windows to a painted boulder in front of the high school to specially designed T-shirts, Garrettsville’s 2,200 residents have been showing their support for a local high school senior who received an emergency heart transplant on New Year’s Eve.
Porter Lyons, on his way to becoming class valedictorian at James A. Garfield High School, became deathly ill on Christmas Eve. A week later, the 18-year-old was given a new heart at the Cleveland Clinic.
Every day since, the residents, businesses and students of Garrettsville have done something to help the Lyons family through this sudden and unexpected struggle.
Frankly, Porter isn’t surprised. Garrettsville has always felt like an extended family, he said.
In a place where downtown pretty much amounts to an intersection, it’s impossible to pump gas or grab a burger without seeing familiar faces.
And yet. ...
“It’s kind of an overwhelming feeling to have that many people pay attention to you and do that kind of stuff for you,” said Porter, who is recovering at home but feeling “totally great.”
Doug Lyons, a local businessman and Boy Scout leader, is also overcome by the ways people are finding to support his family.
“It’s like being in a movie,” he said, thinking of uplifting films he has seen. “Every day people pay a bill for us, or help us out with our mortgage, or bring us dinner. It’s amazing. They do it so we can put all of our effort into taking care of this guy.”
Among the benefactors is the local scouting community. In January, Boy Scout troop families took turns delivering dinner every night. In February, the local Cub Scout pack took over.
Cub Scout parents Chris and David Schaefer said they know not worrying about food has been a relief for Doug and Karen Lyons. In addition to keeping up with Porter’s medical appointments, the Lyonses have other children with school and activities, not to mention the family business of making jams and jellies for food retailers throughout the state.
“We had meetings with our parents, and everybody picked a day to provide dinner,” Chris Schaefer said, listing beef roast and sloppy joes among recent offerings.
“I know if something happened to someone else, the Lyons would be in the middle of it doing everything they could.”
The Schaefers moved to the area from Parma eight years ago, and said in a bigger city, you might see a church or school or block rallying to support a family.
“In a place like this, it’s the whole town,” David Schaefer said.
Student organizer
The chief organizer of several fundraising efforts is Jacob Vaughan, a senior at neighboring Windham High School, Garfield’s longtime sports rival. He met Porter last summer when the two — National Honor Society presidents of their respective chapters — organized a run to benefit research for glioma, a brain cancer that took the life of a local girl.
Their social circles did not intersect again after the race, but in these parts, there is only one degree of separation between every living soul. Soon after Porter was flown to Cleveland Clinic, Jacob was reading about it on Facebook through posts made by mutual friends.
With the experience of last summer’s fundraiser fresh in his mind, Jacob immediately began thinking of ways to help. He dismissed his first idea of putting donation jars at local businesses.
“I said that’s not going to cut it. I knew [Porter’s parents] were going to miss work days and there would be hospital bills and gas and food, and they were going to need a whole lot more” than spare change.
Walkers make difference
A benefit walk was an obvious choice. Four weeks of planning culminated Saturday, when 155 people defied 4 inches of overnight snowfall and 16-degree weather to pay $10 to walk from Main Street to Porter’s house, carrying a 15-foot banner that read: “Garfield ª Porter.”
The background of the banner was made of red paper hearts purchased for $1 a piece at local food establishments, including Subway, McDonald’s, Dairy Queen and IGA. The National Honor Society helped with the project.
For two weeks, the hearts — carrying the slogan “Hearts for a Lyon” — covered the windows of local businesses.
The town isn’t done yet.
Assistant Principal Jennifer Mulhern said the Garfield student council has organized a spaghetti dinner for Feb. 24, before the annual basketball game against Windham. The daylong affair has been dubbed “Rivals for a Cause.”
The various events “are probably the largest effort we’ve done at the high school” aimed at a single student, Mulhern said.
Activities include giving a makeover to the front lawn’s boulder, which the Art Club paints for various seasons or events. For now, it’s sporting red and pink hearts and reads “ª’s 4 Lyons”
Fashion statement
Meanwhile, fashion at the benefit walk and the upcoming basketball game includes “Heart of the Lyons” T-shirts sporting a lion’s face and the word “Courage.”
The shirts were designed by Nancy Crawford at Business Works, which makes promotional items. Ryser Insurance and the Rotary Club of Garrettsville-Hiram helped pay for the shirts so that all sale proceeds can go directly to the Lyons family.
Crawford said she moved to Garrettsville because it’s where her husband grew up and she found it “a great town to live in.”
She said what the Lyonses are going through “has touched every one of us.”
Doug Lyons said his son has been “doing great” and now weighs 138 pounds, on his way back to his normal 160 pounds.
On Friday, Porter had a scheduled heart catheterization at the Cleveland Clinic to allow doctors to establish a baseline for future annual tests.
He’s on $5,700 worth of monthly medications, including anti-rejection prescriptions he must take religiously for the rest of his life to prevent his immune system from attacking his new heart.
His dad knows a little something about that routine. Porter’s illness was genetic; his father had a heart transplant himself in 1987.
Porter has been using his time at home to apply to colleges and keep up with his school work, hoping to maintain the top rank in his class.
Teen is inspiration
Jacob Vaughan sees his friend as a role model.
“Porter has been so strong. He uses humor anytime I talk to him. I can’t imagine going through what he’s gone through, and I wonder if I could do what he does,” Jacob said. “I really don’t know.”
Porter’s story also made an impression on local resident Tommie Jo Marsilio, a Portage County commissioner.
Today, Marsilio plans to ask her fellow commissioners to declare this Valentine’s Day “Porter Lyons Day” as a way to raise awareness of heart disease and the power of organ donations.
She said she was moved by the sight of all those red paper hearts covering the windows of businesses and how people “were still giving them dollars, even after they sold out of the hearts.”
“Call me sappy, but I think it’s a great story,” Marsilio said, “and I love that it has a happy ending.”
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.