April 2, 2025 • 12 mins
A 55+ community in Cincinnati, Heritage at Miami Bluffs has built a vibrant neighborhood of caring and hard-working retirees and other grown ups that has changed lives and fed neighbors. Mike Schaltz and Tom Sullivan from the Heritage at Miami Bluffs Men's Club are my guests. One of dozens of other groups and activities available to residents, The Men's Club has raised more than $300,000 for charity in Warren County. We talk about their upcoming fundraiser and learn more about their Thanksgiving Meal program.
Heritage at Miami Bluffs website
Heritage at Miami Bluffs Facebook event
Heritage at Miami Bluffs website
Heritage at Miami Bluffs Facebook event
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Thanks for listening, and welcome back to Iheartsincy. I'm Sandy Collins.
This is a Tri State public affairs show here in
the Tri State where I get to introduce you to very.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Very awesome people.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
My next guests are members of a men's club that
formed at the Heritage of Miami Bluff's retirement community in Mainville.
Let's meet my guests, Tom Sullivan and Mike Schultz.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Guys, welcome to the show. Mike, how big is your community?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's three hundred and seventy home sites about six hundred
and twenty five people and started a community in two
thousand and two, two thousand and three. Yeah, it's right
off of seventy one east of King's Island.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Are you familiar with the over fifty five community concept?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I was going to ask you if you guys are
like the villages in Florida kind.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Of the same things.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
The over fifty five community is basically a legal construct
Congress pastor law Fairhousing Act. It say you can't just
discriminate against people for age, creed, religion, whatever it is.
And then they said, well we're going to change that
a little bit, and they passed another law. There was HOPA,
which are Housing for Older Persons Act, which said you
(01:14):
can discriminate by age as long as you do these things.
One of them was nobody under the age of fifty
five can be in the house by themselves. You could
have a fifty five year old person and their spouse
could be fifty, but somebody has to be fifty five.
Nobody under the age of eighteen can live there. And
(01:36):
every two years you have to audit the community to
make sure that these regulations are being followed. If not,
we could pull your HOPE designation. So that's why we're
Can you.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Have your grandkids over for parties and holidays and things
like that, get out when you're done.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
But there's no school buses, no school buses going through
the community, and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
And that whole story too, is why fifty five and
over communities are limited in Ohio. There are not too many.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
How many here one I only know us.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I think there's here. I think there's one up in
the Cleveland Akron area. I know there's one over in
northern Kentucky. Yeah, somewhere.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
But we were talking about the villages before we started.
Folks in the villages. If you haven't heard huge community.
It's all fifty five plus and you get around with
golf carts and there's hundreds and hundreds of them. There's restaurants,
there's bars. I believe there's movie theaters in this little bit.
They have their own zip code down at the villages.
(02:41):
So there's a lot of social interaction that's part of
this gated community.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
And that's why you guys put this together.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
You have a men's club, right, you have a women's club,
book club, what else?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
We have over forty different clubs, groups, organizations. I mean,
it's a social wonder in the area. But the women's club,
they have about seventy five members. They do a wonderful
job with nutritional help with King's Food Pantry, and they
support Safe on Maine, which is an abusive shelter. So
(03:16):
our women's club does a great job.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So the Heritage at Miami Bluffs has all these clubs
for its residents, who you said there is up to
about six hundred and some residents.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Five and as the.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Men's club participants, you guys got together in the early
two thousands.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, the community started in early two thousand and three
and in two thousand and five, as the story goes.
We had six or seven guys playing poker at the
clubhouse and someone said, well, what do you think about
starting a men's club. We could do some charity work
and have some fun, and a couple other guys said,
let's do it.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
In twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Twenty years ago, two thousand and five, we had fifteen
members and our first charity effort, we were proud to
serve five families Thanksgiving dinner in two thousand and five,
and so it's just built from that time.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
And those families were in Warren County.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Warren County, and they were our first partnership charitable partnership
was with Warren County Community Services. We had that partnership
today and that Thanksgiving program is built from five families
to last year we did one hundred and eight two
hundred and twenty five different people in those in those.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Families past all get in the Thanksgiving meal because you
guys cared enough to raise money and pay for it.
And your upcoming event is really why you're here. Tell
us about the heritage at Miami Bluff's Men's Club Walk
and run.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
In two thousand and nine, we started to do a
fundraiser because we wanted to amp up a little bit.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
On our charity work.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
We had a community dinner for about eleven years and
it went fine until COVID hit and hopefully an interesting
story for your listeners. When COVID hit, we couldn't get
together for the for the clubhouse dinner. So our president
at the time, Ken McAllister, was sitting at his front
(05:11):
window having coffee with his wife and saw three or
four ladies walk by and he said, that's an idea.
We're going to have a fundraising community walk and we'll
ask for donations and you.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Can do it outside. Do it outside about COVID.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So this year on May tenth, it'll be our fifty
years for our residents and they come and support us.
They all put the T shirts on and they walk
two miles, two blocks or two feet whatever they can
do and make donations.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
To help us out.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
How much does it cost to do part of the
walk be a part of that.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
We have about two hundred and twenty five two hundred
and fifty people show up, so you're.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Not necessarily asking for people from out of the community
to come in and do that. Now, No, you're just
going to do it, but you do need businesses to
support the walk.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yes, we we have over one hundred and twenty five individuals, ansors, residents,
friends of all of our members. But we have about
eighty to ninety businesses, small and large, and they provide donations.
A lot of it comes from Financial Advisors. One of
(06:15):
the organizations that has helped us every year since we've
been doing it as the Cincinnati Reds. They have a
vice president down there, Craig Warman, who has helped us
out every year. And it goes from the Cincinnati Reds
to the local dry cleaners.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So let me go over some of these things you
said you've raised since the Men's Club started, three hundred
and five thousand dollars in support of Warren County charities.
That's a lot of money. Congratulations serving Bernie's Place, homeless
shelter over the years, the Hamilton Township Police Department's Canine Unit,
children's community service program. So it's a very wide swath
(06:53):
that trying to help out here. And so this money
that you're going to raise in May is going to
pay for the Thanksgiving dinner, is that right?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Part of it goes to the Thanksgiving Meals program, and
part of it would go to allocations that we make
to Warren County Community Services their meals on wheels, King's
Food Pantry, and one that you didn't mention, Family Promise
is another transition housing situation where a lot of it
(07:24):
is women and children in an abusive situation, so we
try to help there as well.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
You want an active and fun, relaxed lifestyle, is that
what you have there.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Tom active adult community. But the Men's Club itself is
a five oh one C three charitable organization, which means
all donations to the HMB Men's Club are charitable charitable
deduction for anybody who wants to participate in it. We
work with Warren County Charitable Services Organization. So for the
(07:54):
Thanksgiving dinner, not only is the dinner provided, we work
with Bob Evans to provide the meals for that, but
we also work with Kroger and we provide Warren County
residents in need with dry goods, with foodstuffs, with cleaning supplies,
things that they desperately need. So we have two really
(08:16):
good partners in Bob Evans and with Kroger as well.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
When you talk about the dinner, you're not having a
dinner where everybody's gathered, right, you actually take these meals
to the families.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Yes, the driving teams that go out and we have
two hundred and twenty five members that get engaged not
only as two man teams that go out and deliver
to these homes, these hundred and eight homes that we
did in twenty twenty four, but they also go to
Bob Evans. Bob Evans has a prepackaged Thanksgiving meal with
(08:49):
turkey or ham, whichever they need, with all of the fixings,
and that gets delivered to their house the day before Thanksgiving.
So it's a little bright spot in an otherwise difficult
life for a lot of people, Right, And they're decided
upon through the folks in Warren County who are serving
(09:09):
them in other ways. Yes, they have their hand on
the pulse of the needs of the community, and they
provide us with a list of people. They coordinate it,
and they do a phenomenal job in Warren County.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
What's it like, Mike to go in there and see
these families that are struggling. Their home situation is going
to be a whole lot different than yours.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Oh, it's so diverse. But our guys come back with
some great stories about how they knocked on the door,
shook a hand, maybe gave a hug and touched to heart.
We get some really touching thank you notes. One particular
that I always kind of struck me was this lady said,
God bless all you men who support the we seniors
(09:52):
of Warren County. So she was very, very appreciative. But
it is a touching, touching day. Our guys come back
with a lot of great stories. You might be interested
in just one other little story. Hamilton Township Police Department
two years ago started their canine unit and we now
have Con, the canine from Germany who was trained over
(10:16):
there and our Men's Club helped bring him over. Of course,
there's some expense in bringing them over. You got to
feed them, you know, twelve months out of year, you
got to feed them. So we help with our first responders,
our police and CON's on the job now in Hamilton Township.
An organization many times likes to get feedback, and we
(10:38):
were in twenty twenty four we were provided with an
opportunity from Warren County Foundation. They control, you know, twenty
some million dollars worth of foundation moneys in their organization
and we were awarded the Emerging Organization Community Service Award
in twenty twenty four, So that's a little bit of
(11:00):
recognition for our organization, along with Cincinnati Enquirer who did
a full page color article November twenty fourth, I think
it was in twenty twenty four about our Thanksgiving Meals program.
So we appreciate not only the recognition, but it helps
when you can go to your sponsors and say, you know, look,
(11:20):
here's what organization.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
We're an incredible organization that is that is very important.
The walk is coming up in May, and then you're
gonna do Is there another thing on the books this year?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, in November, and we'll do our Thanksgiving Meals program
again in November. We'll start organizing that in September. We've
got our captains with Kroger's and Bob Evans, and we've
got a guy who plots out where everybody is located
so our driver teams know where to go. But the
need continues to grow. I mean twenty twenty three we
(11:56):
did one hundred and then last year was one hundred
and eight. Next year, Warren County Community Services is asking
us for one hundred and twenty four, So we're going
to try to be up to the challenge.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Anything that you want to add before we go tom
this again.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
We're a charitable organization, so donations are accepted if they
want to contribute to the HMB Men's Club. We're at
fourteen seventy seven Heritage Boulevard in Mainville. Nothing is too small,
too large. We've got a lot of very dedicated residents
(12:33):
and members of the Men's Club that are participating. As
Mike said, we have seventy five to eighty corporate sponsors
who have been loyal to us over the last five years,
so we could always use more.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Well, thank you so much for what you do for
the community. I'm sure it's also self fulfilling. Makes you
feel good making friends in your community and helping out
your neighbors. So thank you for that and thanks for
being on the show.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
We appreciate you having us. Thank you.
Thanks for listening, and welcome back to Iheartsincy. I'm Sandy Collins.
This is a Tri State public affairs show here in
the Tri State where I get to introduce you to very.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Very awesome people.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
My next guests are members of a men's club that
formed at the Heritage of Miami Bluff's retirement community in Mainville.
Let's meet my guests, Tom Sullivan and Mike Schultz.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Guys, welcome to the show. Mike, how big is your community?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's three hundred and seventy home sites about six hundred
and twenty five people and started a community in two
thousand and two, two thousand and three. Yeah, it's right
off of seventy one east of King's Island.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Are you familiar with the over fifty five community concept?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I was going to ask you if you guys are
like the villages in Florida kind.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Of the same things.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
The over fifty five community is basically a legal construct
Congress pastor law Fairhousing Act. It say you can't just
discriminate against people for age, creed, religion, whatever it is.
And then they said, well we're going to change that
a little bit, and they passed another law. There was HOPA,
which are Housing for Older Persons Act, which said you
(01:14):
can discriminate by age as long as you do these things.
One of them was nobody under the age of fifty
five can be in the house by themselves. You could
have a fifty five year old person and their spouse
could be fifty, but somebody has to be fifty five.
Nobody under the age of eighteen can live there. And
(01:36):
every two years you have to audit the community to
make sure that these regulations are being followed. If not,
we could pull your HOPE designation. So that's why we're
Can you.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Have your grandkids over for parties and holidays and things
like that, get out when you're done.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
But there's no school buses, no school buses going through
the community, and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
And that whole story too, is why fifty five and
over communities are limited in Ohio. There are not too many.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
How many here one I only know us.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I think there's here. I think there's one up in
the Cleveland Akron area. I know there's one over in
northern Kentucky. Yeah, somewhere.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
But we were talking about the villages before we started.
Folks in the villages. If you haven't heard huge community.
It's all fifty five plus and you get around with
golf carts and there's hundreds and hundreds of them. There's restaurants,
there's bars. I believe there's movie theaters in this little bit.
They have their own zip code down at the villages.
(02:41):
So there's a lot of social interaction that's part of
this gated community.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
And that's why you guys put this together.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
You have a men's club, right, you have a women's club,
book club, what else?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
We have over forty different clubs, groups, organizations. I mean,
it's a social wonder in the area. But the women's club,
they have about seventy five members. They do a wonderful
job with nutritional help with King's Food Pantry, and they
support Safe on Maine, which is an abusive shelter. So
(03:16):
our women's club does a great job.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So the Heritage at Miami Bluffs has all these clubs
for its residents, who you said there is up to
about six hundred and some residents.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Five and as the.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Men's club participants, you guys got together in the early
two thousands.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, the community started in early two thousand and three
and in two thousand and five, as the story goes.
We had six or seven guys playing poker at the
clubhouse and someone said, well, what do you think about
starting a men's club. We could do some charity work
and have some fun, and a couple other guys said,
let's do it.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
In twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Twenty years ago, two thousand and five, we had fifteen
members and our first charity effort, we were proud to
serve five families Thanksgiving dinner in two thousand and five,
and so it's just built from that time.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
And those families were in Warren County.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Warren County, and they were our first partnership charitable partnership
was with Warren County Community Services. We had that partnership
today and that Thanksgiving program is built from five families
to last year we did one hundred and eight two
hundred and twenty five different people in those in those.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Families past all get in the Thanksgiving meal because you
guys cared enough to raise money and pay for it.
And your upcoming event is really why you're here. Tell
us about the heritage at Miami Bluff's Men's Club Walk
and run.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
In two thousand and nine, we started to do a
fundraiser because we wanted to amp up a little bit.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
On our charity work.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
We had a community dinner for about eleven years and
it went fine until COVID hit and hopefully an interesting
story for your listeners. When COVID hit, we couldn't get
together for the for the clubhouse dinner. So our president
at the time, Ken McAllister, was sitting at his front
(05:11):
window having coffee with his wife and saw three or
four ladies walk by and he said, that's an idea.
We're going to have a fundraising community walk and we'll
ask for donations and you.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Can do it outside. Do it outside about COVID.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So this year on May tenth, it'll be our fifty
years for our residents and they come and support us.
They all put the T shirts on and they walk
two miles, two blocks or two feet whatever they can
do and make donations.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
To help us out.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
How much does it cost to do part of the
walk be a part of that.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
We have about two hundred and twenty five two hundred
and fifty people show up, so you're.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Not necessarily asking for people from out of the community
to come in and do that. Now, No, you're just
going to do it, but you do need businesses to
support the walk.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yes, we we have over one hundred and twenty five individuals, ansors, residents,
friends of all of our members. But we have about
eighty to ninety businesses, small and large, and they provide donations.
A lot of it comes from Financial Advisors. One of
(06:15):
the organizations that has helped us every year since we've
been doing it as the Cincinnati Reds. They have a
vice president down there, Craig Warman, who has helped us
out every year. And it goes from the Cincinnati Reds
to the local dry cleaners.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So let me go over some of these things you
said you've raised since the Men's Club started, three hundred
and five thousand dollars in support of Warren County charities.
That's a lot of money. Congratulations serving Bernie's Place, homeless
shelter over the years, the Hamilton Township Police Department's Canine Unit,
children's community service program. So it's a very wide swath
(06:53):
that trying to help out here. And so this money
that you're going to raise in May is going to
pay for the Thanksgiving dinner, is that right?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Part of it goes to the Thanksgiving Meals program, and
part of it would go to allocations that we make
to Warren County Community Services their meals on wheels, King's
Food Pantry, and one that you didn't mention, Family Promise
is another transition housing situation where a lot of it
(07:24):
is women and children in an abusive situation, so we
try to help there as well.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
You want an active and fun, relaxed lifestyle, is that
what you have there.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Tom active adult community. But the Men's Club itself is
a five oh one C three charitable organization, which means
all donations to the HMB Men's Club are charitable charitable
deduction for anybody who wants to participate in it. We
work with Warren County Charitable Services Organization. So for the
(07:54):
Thanksgiving dinner, not only is the dinner provided, we work
with Bob Evans to provide the meals for that, but
we also work with Kroger and we provide Warren County
residents in need with dry goods, with foodstuffs, with cleaning supplies,
things that they desperately need. So we have two really
(08:16):
good partners in Bob Evans and with Kroger as well.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
When you talk about the dinner, you're not having a
dinner where everybody's gathered, right, you actually take these meals
to the families.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Yes, the driving teams that go out and we have
two hundred and twenty five members that get engaged not
only as two man teams that go out and deliver
to these homes, these hundred and eight homes that we
did in twenty twenty four, but they also go to
Bob Evans. Bob Evans has a prepackaged Thanksgiving meal with
(08:49):
turkey or ham, whichever they need, with all of the fixings,
and that gets delivered to their house the day before Thanksgiving.
So it's a little bright spot in an otherwise difficult
life for a lot of people, Right, And they're decided
upon through the folks in Warren County who are serving
(09:09):
them in other ways. Yes, they have their hand on
the pulse of the needs of the community, and they
provide us with a list of people. They coordinate it,
and they do a phenomenal job in Warren County.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
What's it like, Mike to go in there and see
these families that are struggling. Their home situation is going
to be a whole lot different than yours.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Oh, it's so diverse. But our guys come back with
some great stories about how they knocked on the door,
shook a hand, maybe gave a hug and touched to heart.
We get some really touching thank you notes. One particular
that I always kind of struck me was this lady said,
God bless all you men who support the we seniors
(09:52):
of Warren County. So she was very, very appreciative. But
it is a touching, touching day. Our guys come back
with a lot of great stories. You might be interested
in just one other little story. Hamilton Township Police Department
two years ago started their canine unit and we now
have Con, the canine from Germany who was trained over
(10:16):
there and our Men's Club helped bring him over. Of course,
there's some expense in bringing them over. You got to
feed them, you know, twelve months out of year, you
got to feed them. So we help with our first responders,
our police and CON's on the job now in Hamilton Township.
An organization many times likes to get feedback, and we
(10:38):
were in twenty twenty four we were provided with an
opportunity from Warren County Foundation. They control, you know, twenty
some million dollars worth of foundation moneys in their organization
and we were awarded the Emerging Organization Community Service Award
in twenty twenty four, So that's a little bit of
(11:00):
recognition for our organization, along with Cincinnati Enquirer who did
a full page color article November twenty fourth, I think
it was in twenty twenty four about our Thanksgiving Meals program.
So we appreciate not only the recognition, but it helps
when you can go to your sponsors and say, you know, look,
(11:20):
here's what organization.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
We're an incredible organization that is that is very important.
The walk is coming up in May, and then you're
gonna do Is there another thing on the books this year?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, in November, and we'll do our Thanksgiving Meals program
again in November. We'll start organizing that in September. We've
got our captains with Kroger's and Bob Evans, and we've
got a guy who plots out where everybody is located
so our driver teams know where to go. But the
need continues to grow. I mean twenty twenty three we
(11:56):
did one hundred and then last year was one hundred
and eight. Next year, Warren County Community Services is asking
us for one hundred and twenty four, So we're going
to try to be up to the challenge.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Anything that you want to add before we go tom
this again.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
We're a charitable organization, so donations are accepted if they
want to contribute to the HMB Men's Club. We're at
fourteen seventy seven Heritage Boulevard in Mainville. Nothing is too small,
too large. We've got a lot of very dedicated residents
(12:33):
and members of the Men's Club that are participating. As
Mike said, we have seventy five to eighty corporate sponsors
who have been loyal to us over the last five years,
so we could always use more.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Well, thank you so much for what you do for
the community. I'm sure it's also self fulfilling. Makes you
feel good making friends in your community and helping out
your neighbors. So thank you for that and thanks for
being on the show.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
We appreciate you having us. Thank you.
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