Loveland's Valentine remailing program is a real, long-running tradition

Loveland’s nickname, the “Sweetheart City,” rests on a tradition that actually happens every year. Around Valentine’s Day, the city runs a Valentine re-mailing program. You send your sealed, stamped cards to Loveland, and volunteers there add a special Loveland postmark and a short verse before sending each one on to its final address.

The program goes back to the 1940s, when local stamp enthusiasts and a postmaster noticed people liked getting their valentines marked “Loveland.” It grew into a partnership between the U.S. Postal Service and the Loveland Chamber of Commerce that now handles cards from across the country and around the world.

For a new resident, this is a small but genuine piece of local life, not a tourism slogan. If you want to take part, the details matter: there is a deadline to get your cards to Loveland in time, and there are instructions for how to package them so the volunteers can re-mail them. Those dates and steps change from year to year.

For the current year’s deadlines and mailing instructions, check the Loveland Chamber of Commerce, which runs the program with the Postal Service.