BY ANDREW BAILEY
BG Independent News Correspondent
Through postcards with hand drawn art and wholesome messages, Cathi Arcuri has been lifting the spirits of first responders, immunocompromised people, and anyone who needs a smile through her company, Smiley Mail.
Each card is adorned with the company logo, a smiley face, like the ones she has on the wheels of her wheelchair.
Over 20 years ago, she was working as a taxi driver and dispatcher in Florida, until she was involved in a car accident that ruptured her aorta, paralyzed her vocal chords, caused a blood clot in her spinal cord, and gave her traumatic brain injury.
She came back to Bowling Green to be with family during rehabilitation and has been a resident since.
The accident may have limited her mobility, but it didn’t stop her pursuing goals. She’s now vice president of the Northwest Ohio Chapter of the United Spinal Association and a bona fide businesswoman.
Nor did it diminish her “spirit of giving.”
If anything, it strengthened it, as the company motto is “to put a smiley face on as many faces as we can.”
In Spring 2020, after the state was put under lockdown due to the coronavirus, Arcuri received a letter from a friend with a simple but meaningful message that “she would get through this.”
“It made my day,” Arcuri said of the letter. “It was small, but it meant so much to me.”
After having such joy brought to her by a simple letter, Arcuri knew it was something she wanted to share with others.
So, she started Smiley Mail to lift spirits with “smiley faces” and “air hugs.”
In Bowling Green, she has delivered to the post office, the fire department, and other local organizations that have been working hard to serve the community during the pandemic.
Her checklist isn’t filled out yet, and she’s hard at work getting the next batches ready.
She said she’s delivered “thousands and thousands” of postcards and has gotten joyous feedback to match.
She specifically remembered one instance, where “a huge guy with massive arms” stopped by her apartment building, and after handing him a postcard, “he let out one of the biggest, happiest chuckles I’ve ever heard. It wasn’t the fake kind of laugh; it was the kind of laugh where you could just hear and feel the happiness coming from them. He said, ‘I’m gonna put this on my fridge and my daughters will love this.’”
She often gets to see recipients laugh, smile, and cry in person, because she hand delivers each batch of cards in her trusty rusty van that’s been with her for years.
Arcuri has an ever-growing team of “angels” who work their magic.
“Angels are anyone with a creative imagination,” she said.
Arcuri and the angels draw pictures on each individually prepared card, ranging from simple suns and rainbows to more complex woodland creatures and landscapes of beaches and horizons.
“We’re a team,” Arcuri said. “I couldn’t do this without all the people that have helped me along the way.”
Like any business, Smiley Mail is a learning experience for Arcuri. For her first batch, she delivered 800 letters, instead of postcards, and most of them were tossed in the trash.
“People thought they were junk mail,” she said. But that didn’t stop her, as she realized a smaller postcard, with the company logo on the front and the message on the back, would be less likely to be mistaken for junk.
So, for her second batch, she delivered 1,000 postcards, and has been improving the cards and the business with each subsequent batch.
Starting a business during a pandemic is a challenge, one that requires courage.
And courage is just one part of Cathi Arcuri. While competing in the 2003 Miss Wheelchair pageant in Ohio, she was called to answer a question about herself, and through a moment of the creativity that she has shown her whole life, she turned her first name into an acronym — Courage, Attitude, Therapy, Humor, Independent.
Those five words are what drives Arcuri to continue with Smiley Mail.
“It’s like a smile from the soul,” she said.
In order to keep her company going, she started fundraising for a new van to help her deliver the postcards.
The van, which can fit multiple wheelchairs, will be multipurpose, she said. She also wants to use it to take friends to various events in the area.
Smiley Mail sponsors the Connection Center’s Outreach Program, and Arcuri is always looking to work with local businesses and organizations to spread the word about her business.
She described Smiley Mail’s future as “a plant ready to … “ followed by outstretched hands signaling an explosion of love.
