Downtown Cincinnati’s family-owned Woods Hardware was one of the several shops affected by last weekend’s protests that turned aggressive as the evening drew on.
According to a Facebook post by shop CEO Matt Woods, he received an alert from his general manager on Saturday morning around 1:45 a.m. that flower racks located in front of the store had been knocked over. By the time Woods arrived at the store to assess the situation, the flowers had been picked back up.
“I was incredulous,” Woods said in a Facebook post. “In the midst of all the chaos, some good Samaritan(s) came by and picked everything up within 45 minutes of me getting the call.”
After watching the video, which he attached to his post, he noted that the unidentified good humans spent 34 minutes picking up the mess.
In his post, where Woods attached the video of the unidentified people, he asks viewers to let him know if they recognize them, so he can properly thank them.
“I’d like to thank them for taking the time and also risking their own safety to take care of our store. It’s a big reason why I decided to stay down there all night with a lawn chair and to start passing out waters. Knowing there were good people out there, I wanted to stay and do my part to help,” he said.
“This is the type of stuff that makes me proud to be from Cincinnati.”
Woods Hardware opened in 1933 and has five different locations across the Greater Cincinnati area.
This article appears in May 6 – Jun 14, 2020.