Thanks Cleveland

This Saturday the 18th we get to the celebrate yet another Hallmark Holiday, Sweetest Day. I wanted to find out he origin of this so-called holiday. I found it to be pretty interesting. Here is the orignal ad in the in 1922 in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Sweetest Day was founded around 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio by Herbert Birch Kingston who was a local candy company employee. Kingston sought to bring cheer and some happiness to the lives of those who were often forgotten. With the help of his friends, he began distributing candy and small gifts to children living in orphanages, those stricken with illness or disabilities, shut-ins, and others who were forgotten.


During the early years of the holiday, movie star Ann Pennington presented 2,200 Cleveland newspaper boys with boxes of candy to express gratitude for their service to the community. Theda Bara, another movie star of the period, also helped in establishing the holiday by giving away 10,000 boxes of candy to people in hospitals and to those individuals who came to watch one of her films at the Playhouse Square Theaters in Cleveland, Ohio.

Within a decade, the simple idea had gained such popularity that the city of Cleveland officially declared the third Saturday of October as Sweetest Day.