Love and attention are what's in store for whom the bell rings.
Such is the mission behind local woman and domestic abuse survivor Chelsea Summer's heartfelt venture: love bells.
Summer, who was a successful destination wedding planner and travel agent before the pandemic, was sitting at her desk one day reviewing client refunds from cancelled weddings when she began to feel overwhelmed and impulse struck.
Out of the blue, she picked up the wedding bell sitting on her desk and rang it.
"I was thinking of my son and how he felt, and how I had to focus so much on my recovery and things like that, that maybe I wasn't giving him enough love and attention," said Summer. "I just had this urge to ring the bell and see what happened, and my son came running down the stairs.
"I just told him in that moment, 'dude, from now on, we're gonna ring this bell whenever one of us needs a hug — no questions asked.'"
Her young son loved the idea so much that they found themselves ringing the bell all the time, she said, which led her to paint it for him as a keepsake.
Between her career failing, losing nearly two years worth of travel commissions, and dealing with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury at the hands of her former partner, Summer was left to wonder how she could pick up the pieces and move forward.
She has always dabbled in art, and one day brought a few more bells — which she paints with mandala designs — to sell at a local market.
"One lady asked me for my story and about the bells, and I so I told her... and she was almost in tears," said Summer.
The woman encouraged her to share her story with more people and Summer pondered the idea, knowing it would require a certain level of vulnerability to open up about her situation.
On a whim, she posted the story behind the bells to Facebook and it boomed over Christmas, where she sold around 100 of them.
"People were thanking me and saying the bells were something that genuinely helped them," she said.
Parents told Summer it brought them closer together with their kids, and couples were able to better connect too.
"I thought if it's reaching people the way it is, and if I can raise money for domestic abuse survivors and I can bring all that into one, with the fact that painting this art heals me — holy, what more could I ask for?"
Since launching the love bells over Christmas, the artist has sold around 20-30 each week — enough to keep her hands busy and mind focused on healing.
Now she plans to donate 10 per cent of the proceeds from each bell in support of domestic abuse survivors having been in those shoes and not seeing the abusive relationship for what it was at the time.
"It was a very controlling relationship," Summer explained. "But there was an approach to it where I didn't realize what was happening at the time — which is very common with traumatic situations and domestic abuse."
While she has not yet picked an organization to support, the survivor has been eyeing Big Hill Haven in Cochrane in hopes of helping someone else find a path to healing.
Though she is passionate about the travel industry and did all she could to hang on, she's deemed it too volatile a career to continue at this moment in time.
"I decided I'm going to put my money, my heart, my soul into something else that I'm super passionate about," said Summer. "This is helping more families, helping more women, helping more people and that just makes my heart sing.
"Mental health doesn't have to be a hush-hush subject. I battled depression, PTSD, and I'm getting through it — and so can you."
Currently Summer's love bells are available for purchase online through Etsy. To expand their reach in an effort to help more people, she hopes to also build her own website and develop a presence in local stores and markets.
