CINCINNATI —

The community is making a difference and sending holiday cheer to a west side fourth-grader spending Christmas in the ICU.

Kennedy Ross is a quadriplegic who continues to defy all odds.

"All the bad things have mostly happened in the past, so I just try to put that all behind me," Ross told WLWT from her hospital bed.

It's an outlook that's beyond her years, but one she has maintained for as long as she can remember.

At just 3 years old, little Kennedy was involved in a car accident, leaving her paralyzed from the neck down.

"She really never ever made an excuse for her disability at all," Ross' mom, Kiara Whitmire said.

Now in fourth grade at Roselawn Condon Elementary School, the 10-year-old is at the top of her class, making straight A's every single year.

Recently, things took a turn for the worse though when Kennedy contracted pneumonia and a bad cold.

"They had to revive Kennedy and she just keeps trying, she's been in ICU for about a month," Whitmire said.

Teachers and classmates continue to send her videos to brighten her day, and Kennedy's mom is looking to make this Christmas season the brightest of them all.

"I know every parent wishes they can give their child the world and that's what I'm trying to do, I know I probably cant give her that but I want to try to get close to it," Whitmire said.

The family is raising money to give her something she's always dreamed of.

Ross told us what that was.

"I really want to go to Disney World," Ross said.

They also want to inspire others this holiday season, if this little girl can smile through so much, maybe we can try doing the same, when times get tough.

"She said mommy, I'm OK, and to hear her say that, I was crying and it made me better," Whitmire said.

CINCINNATI — A Columbus homebuilder who grew up in East Price Hill is hoping to turn Sedamsville into Cincinnati’s next new housing hot spot, with 40 luxury river view homes on vacant land he acquired in November.

Kim Knoppe, founder of Autumnwood Homes, purchased 26 River Road parcels from Ray Brown, an apartment investor who assembled a development site more than a decade ago but never completed his vision for a mid-rise condominium project on River Road west of the Waldvogel Viaduct.

“The views are magnificent and that’s what attracted me to this property,” Knoppe said. “And I’m not talking about a much better place for the West Side residents. I’m talking about attracting the East Side residents and North Side residents and let them know the hidden gems that are here on the West Side.”

The Sedamsville project is the latest in a series of moves through which Knoppe plans to reinvest the wealth he amassed over decades in Columbus into the communities that shaped his character.

“Everything I have, and I mean everything, including the house I live in and all its furnishings, are in a trust,” he said. “And the beneficiary of that trust is the Kim Knoppe Foundation. So, everything I do, I’m doing for charity in the long run.”

Realtor Don Johnson sees Knoppe as a visionary who has the financial resources and patience to bring lasting improvements to the West Side, much like the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. did for Over-the-Rhine.

“OTR has 3CDC. Price Hill and Sedamsville has Kim Knoppe,” said Johnson, a regional vice president for Cutler Real Estate.

Johnson worked with Knoppe to acquire dozens of vacant lots in the Incline District of East Price Hill, where Knoppe designed a three-story home that will be the model for his Sedamsville development. Now under construction on Hawthorne Avenue, the three-bedroom home has 2.5 baths, a two-car garage and a list price of $450,000. Knoppe expects to sell the same model for up to $700,000 in Sedamsville.

Provided by Kim Knoppe

“With the rise in property value in the Incline District, we have now reached the next progression,” Johnson said. “With 15-year tax abatements, this makes for a more affordable option even at a higher purchase price.”

Knoppe is working to schedule a meeting with the Sedamsville Civic Association, but Vice President Cindy Bastin is cautiously optimistic about what she’s heard about Knoppe so far.

Scott Wegener

“I think it sounds exciting,” Bastin said. “We’re the type of neighborhood that really needs some new development.”

Built by German immigrants in the 1800s, Sedamsville is well known to baseball fans as the birthplace of Pete Rose. But the neighborhood has been threatened over time by floods, highway improvements and bad developers.

“Sedamsville is only five streets,” Bastin said. “We’re the second-smallest community in Cincinnati. We don’t have any business district at all. We have a Speedway and a Shell gas station. That’s nothing.”

The widening of U.S. 50 in the 1940s destroyed its business district. The 1976 closure of Our Lady of Perpetual Help school and 1989 closure of its red-brick Gothic church robbed the neighborhood of its cultural anchors. And St. Mark’s German Evangelical Church was demolished by Ray Brown in 2008, nine days before neighbors got the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Provided by Kim Knoppe

That demolition made Brown unpopular in Sedamsville, but Bastin said another big property owner did even more damage to the neighborhood by sexually harassing tenants and failing to follow the terms of a federal consent decree he signed in 2020.

“John Klosterman was probably the worst property owner we’ve ever had,” Bastin said. “He owns like 70-80 pieces of property and to just have it sit there and deteriorate was sad. (But) if we can get developers in who really want to clean up the neighborhood and redevelop some of the older houses, then I’m all for it.”

Whether Knoppe can meet those expectations remains to be seen. But he is clearly taking a different approach than the developers who preceded him in Sedamsville.

Provided by Kim Knoppe

The 71-year-old real estate investor was born on Grand Avenue and set a record in 1968 with 44 receptions for Elder High School’s football team. He returned to a hero’s welcome in 2018 when he pledged $1 million to complete the second floor of the Panther Fitness Center.

Knoppe made the donation to honor Mike Honold, whose “playbook defined the Elder experience and instilled a confidence that cannot be described,” Knoppe wrote for a plaque honoring his former coach.

After graduating from Xavier University and relocating to Columbus, Knoppe became one of central Ohio’s most prolific property flippers – buying and renovating thousands of single-family homes and selling them in lease-to-own transactions through Autumnwood Homes, founded in 1987. As the company grew, Knoppe started financing real estate transactions for other investors all over Ohio. In 2013, the head of the Columbus Real Estate Investors Association called Knoppe “the single-biggest expert in rehabbing houses in the state of Ohio."

But Knoppe wasn’t an active investor in his hometown until 2018, when he bought a condo at Queens Tower and started exploring the neighborhoods he roamed as a kid. In the three years following that purchase, Knoppe has been consolidating his companies into a family trust that will continue to operate his companies after he dies while paying a percentage of its profits to the Kim Knoppe Foundation.

“I see Price Hill, especially East Price Hill and Sedamsville as an area where I personally can make an impact,” Knoppe said. “I would like to go out doing something good.”

CHICAGO, Ill. — On the west side of Chicago, Damon Lamar Reed shows off a portion of his "Still Searching" portrait project.

"I was kind of oblivious to this stuff, and when I started doing research and finding out things, it was really shocking," he said. "I just wanted to do something."

He’s using his talent to draw more eyes to the dozens and dozens of unsolved cases of missing and murdered Black women that have plagued the south and west sides of Chicago for decades. It's an issue many may not have heard of outside of those neighborhoods.

"We're one of the biggest cities in the United States. Not only should this be a priority for our police department, but this should be national, international news," said Nikki Patin.

Patin is the community director for the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, one of the local organizations that have been sounding the alarm about what’s happening in the city.

Since 2001, at least 75 women, ages 15 to 58, mostly Black, who were missing were eventually found murdered in similar ways: most died of strangulation. Their bodies were found in alleys, dumpsters and abandoned buildings around the south and west sides of Chicago. Fifty- one of those murders are unsolved.

"The problem is that in most places, I think that would trigger somebody saying, 'Hmm, there's a pattern,'" said Patin, "but as far as I know, on like a major media level, there's not been a lot of discussion."

Advocates like Patin say the reason so many of these women and their families haven’t received justice is because of the color of their skin and the neighborhoods they come from. She says instead of seeing someone who needs to be found, many assume that Black women and girls who go missing led dangerous lives and put themselves in harm's way.

"That's why you choose to live in a civil society, right? Because you are paying into a system that hopefully has your best interests at heart, and I think that, especially in the cases of missing and murdered Black women, it's heartbreakingly clear that, that is not applied to all of us," she said.

Last year, 250,000 women went missing and 100,000 were women of color. On average, African Americans remain missing four times longer than white Americans. The highly-publicized Gabby Petito case threw into the spotlight the disparities in media coverage that missing women of color receive compared to missing white women. It's a statistic that Gabby’s father even brought up to the media himself.

"There's something wrong. and it's an American tragedy, " said Rev. Robin Hood.

Rev. Hood is a pastor in Chicago’s west side. As an ambassador for his own community, he’s been working with the families of many missing and murdered women. Recently, he’s been helping the family of Shawteiya Smith, who was murdered four years ago. It was recently found that DNA evidence from her case vanished in the hands of detectives.

"We have to protect all our women, all our girls, all our children, we have to protect and we have to demand this from a public official and law enforcement."

Natalie Wilson is the founder of Black and Missing Foundation. With her public relations background, she works with families whose loved ones don't get media coverage. She hopes that both reporters and folks from white communities help in the search for missing women everywhere.

"Media coverage is so vital because it alerts the community that someone is missing and it can greater the chance of the recovery, but it also puts pressure on law enforcement to add resources to the case," said Wilson.

Advocates in Chicago are doing what they can, but to find as many women as possible they say they need everyone – media, law enforcement and the public – to join their efforts.

"This is not a problem that Black women and girls are going to solve by themselves, nor should they," said Nikki Patin. "This should be, you know, of all efforts, this should be a group effort."

CINCINNATI — A new business started by a mom on the West Side could help local parents entertain their children with a good old-fashioned sleepover.

Megan Redmond started the company Cincy Sleepovers during the pandemic when her and her family's summer vacation turned into a staycation. They tried to make everyday things special and fun instead.

So they made sleepover kits. Each kit comes with a tent, air mattress, pillows, blankets, a tray table, themed sheets and other accessories. Some of their current themes include Bengals and Harry Potter.

In addition to ordering a kit, Cincy Sleepovers comes to you to set up the kit up so you can surprise your children, grandchildren or anyone else with a sleepover.

"We've had kids cry, it has brought such joy," Redmond said. "The most exciting part is feeling like we can be a really smart part in bringing some joy and excitement during a time where things are just a little lacking."

The sleepovers start off at $175, and the company is open to new theme ideas, which you can submit on their Facebook page.