SPOKANE, Wash. – At the Riverview Retirement Community, Lanny Burrill is known for his dedication to spreading love through his woodworking – he clocks in daily for what would otherwise be a full-time job.
He penned himself the ‘Crazy Heart Guy.’
He band saws, belts sands, and wheel buffs for 6 to 8 hours a day; Sunday’s he pulls a half-shift to make time for church. He’s made 4,000 hearts so far this year just to give them all away, mostly, to complete strangers.
“I get paid a lot to give away hearts, but it isn’t money,” Burrill said. “I get more hugs and more smiles than you could believe.”
While Burriell gives his hearts away for free, he sells other artwork and donates the proceeds to Riverview. The funds help subsidize rent and other costs for residents in need of financial assistance.
It all began 25 years ago when he crafted a heart from leftover wood while rebuilding a coffee table for his wife. Her approval steered him toward a lifelong hobby.
“Just spread a little love,” Burrill said.
In the workshop, other Riverview residence consider him a celebrity of sorts. His reputation follows him around the retirement community campus.
“Lanny is the heartbeat of why we do what we do,” Riverview CEO Danie Monaghan said. “[He made me] a heart out of plywood. He said, “yeah, because you hold it all together.”
Lanny’s hearts all have a special meaning. That includes hearts with a smaller heart-shaped hole in them – a heart that lost its heart.
“I have a hole in my heart because I lost – someone,” Lanny said.
His wife, Mahli, passed last summer. She had a form of dementia.
“They call it the long goodbye,” Monaghan said. “He loved her with all of his heart.”
His hearts have reached people across the country, from Massachusetts to Florida to Kansas. Lanny works diligently to keep up with demand, but a waitlist is backlogged.
That supply and demand is partially what makes them so valuable, and strangers who cross his path so lucky. From to moment you first meet Burrill, he slips a heart in your palm on the handshake. He’s got giving hearts away down to a science.
He just can’t transplant one.
“No. I’ve got 4 sons and one of them has congestive heart failure,” Burrill said. “The doctors don’t know why.”
Burrill’s son is now 52 years old; he’s been battling the diagnosis for 7 years. Lanny and Mahli adopted him as a baby while stationed in Thailand serving for the United States Air Force.
Hung in Burrill’s hallway just past the front door of his Riverview condo holds a snapshot of his life. A family photo, taken a decade ago, wife his wife, sons, daughters-in-law, and grandkids.
Countless stories lace the frame showing a cycle of love, death, and grief. None of us are immune, and at 86 years old – or as Burrill puts it, the 47th anniversary of his 39th birthday – he’s seen a lot of tough time.
He knows others have too.
With a little wooden heart, he could brighten someone’s day. He could even bring back the same smile he gave his 25 years ago with a coffee table scrap.
