Case study · CX-03 FORGE · CX-04 REACH · Restaurant & community fundraising · Tiffin, Ohio
Local Love · MST: a WooCommerce platform that gave every school and club its own page for local products.
MST Pub & Grub sells its own sauces, rubs and snack sticks — and ran its Local Love program for schools and clubs on paper order sheets. Crossover turned that into an online platform: a page for every school or group, product bundles and gift boxes, shipping or local pickup, and forms that put new sign-ups and food-truck bookings straight in the owner's inbox.
< 5 wks
From domain transfer to live
6
School & group pages launched
9
Bundles & gift boxes built
2
Forms feeding the owner's inbox
✓WordPress + WooCommerce✓Elementor Pro✓Per-school pages✓Bundles & gift boxes✓Shipping + local pickup✓Group sign-up form✓Food-truck booking✓SPF / DKIM / DMARC✓Short-form social video
At a glance
ClientMST Pub & Grub / M$T Sauce Co. — the Local Love program
LocationTiffin, Ohio · schools and clubs across Seneca County and beyond
EngagementFeb 2025 → Apr 2026 — build, hosting and monthly maintenance; the online platform is paused at the client's request
ScopePlatform build · product import & SEO · school & club pages · bundles · shipping & pickup · forms · email deliverability · social video
StackWordPress · Elementor Pro · WooCommerce · Crossover-managed VPS · domain-authenticated mail (SPF / DKIM / DMARC)
ResultLive in under five weeks · six school and club pages online · nine bundles and gift boxes
The challenge
Paper order sheets for a program that deserved a platform
Local Love's mission is simple: sell local products and gift cards so local businesses and schools both win. In practice it ran on printed order forms, a WooCommerce store on someone else's hosting, and the owner's inbox. Schools wanted to sign up; supporters wanted to order online and ship to family out of town; the owner wanted the printable sheets to keep working alongside all of it.
The previous host quoted annual hosting plus a separate maintenance fee. The owner wanted one accountable person instead.
- Fundraisers run on printed order sheets
- Existing WooCommerce store with no fundraising structure
- No per-school pages or way to attribute an order to a group
- Order and form emails landing in spam
- Shipping, pickup and checkout not built for supporters out of town
- Domain and hosting with a third party
The approach
Give every school a page. Give every order a home.
One WooCommerce store, structured around the fundraiser: the group picks the products, supporters order and choose shipping or pickup, and the owner sees the school name on every order.
GROUP
School / club page
Their partners, products and printable PDFs
→
SHOP
Categories & bundles
Sauces · rubs · gift cards · coffee · chocolate
→
ORDER
Checkout
School name on the order, required phone, works on mobile
→
FULFILL
Ship or pick up
Local pickup once the fundraiser is over
→
GROW
Forms
Sign up a group · book the food truck
→
TELL
Short-form video
Products, schools and the local mission
Order emails read the school's name — so fulfilment never guesses.
What was deployed
Everything between the order sheet and the porch
Designed, built and maintained by the same person — the founder of Crossover.
01
Platform build
WordPress with Elementor Pro and WooCommerce on a Crossover-managed VPS; theme chosen with the owner, navigation planned (Home / Fundraising / Shop / Contact / Gifts), all products imported with SEO.
02
Fundraiser pages
A page per school or group showing that area's local partners, products and downloadable order sheets — starting with a Seneca County 4-H club and growing to Mohawk, Tiffin Columbian, Fostoria Band, UNOH Volleyball and Willard Music Boosters.
03
Bundles & gift boxes
Four MST bundles (OG, Spicy, BBQ, Wing) and five partner gift boxes, each with a defined share for the group, flat-rate shipping and local pickup — plus a direct-link landing page for a music boosters group.
04
Checkout that works for supporters
Shipping and pickup flow fixed, required phone at checkout, order emails showing the actual school name, and a mobile-wallet checkout error traced to a mislabeled checkout field and fixed.
05
Forms & email
“Start Your Program” and “Book MST Food Truck” forms delivering to the owner; SPF, DKIM, DMARC and SMTP configured so order and form emails stop landing in spam.
06
Social video
Short-form cuts from the pub's own footage with per-platform captions, hashtags and posting times for the pub, the food truck and the Local Love mission.
Timeline
From pitch to the first fundraiser in five weeks
FEB 4, 2025Pitch meetingServices reviewed; the owner shares the Local Love magazine; a four-page website overview follows within the week.
FEB 18 – 28, 2025Domain transferred, build beginsDomain moved to Crossover management; theme chosen; per-school pages planned; products imported with SEO; two in-person working sessions.
MAR 13, 2025LiveFirst 4-H club fundraiser online with shipping and local pickup; the club rolls it out to the kids that weekend.
MAR – MAY 2025Shop rebuild, new groups, formsShop-now landing page with category buttons and new photos; Fostoria Band and UNOH Volleyball added; sign-up and food-truck forms; email deliverability fixed.
JUL – AUG 2025Social videoShort-form videos and posting plans produced from the pub's own footage.
OCT – NOV 2025Bundles + boosters landing pageNine bundles and gift boxes built; direct-link fundraiser page for Willard Music Boosters; walkthrough with the owner.
SPRING 2026Platform pausedWith most supporters preferring physical order sheets, the owner chose to pause the online platform; the build, structure and content remain ready to relaunch.
From the field
A fundraiser order, as a log
Representative flow from the 2025 fundraising season.
[2025-03-13 09:41:12] page=seneca-county-4h status=LIVE pickup=school shipping=enabled
[2025-03-13 09:41:15] products=imported seo=OK pdfs=footer-downloads
[2025-05-02 08:14:03] mail spf=PASS dkim=PASS dmarc=PASS forms=inbox
[2025-05-10 19:22:47] checkout field=support-a-school required=phone mobile_wallet=OK
[2025-10-31 15:05:30] bundles mst=4 gift_boxes=5 share=group shipping=flat-rate
[2025-11-10 10:00:00] landing=willard-music-boosters gate=none walkthrough=DONE
[2025-11-10 10:02:19] order school=willard-music-boosters fulfil=ship email=owner status=RECEIVED
Log is illustrative; values reflect the 2025 Local Love season.
Results
What Local Love got
< 5 wks
To launch
6
School & club pages online
9
Bundles & gift boxes
2
Forms feeding the owner's inbox
- Every school or club with its own page and printable sheets
- Bundles and gift boxes built around each group
- Shipping for supporters out of town, pickup for locals
- Order emails that name the school
- Forms for new groups and food-truck bookings
- Mail that reaches the inbox (SPF / DKIM / DMARC)
- Short-form video and posting plans for the mission
- One accountable person for domain, hosting and fixes
Why it works
Order sheets vs. the platform
Same sauces, same schools — a very different Sunday.
| The platform | Order sheets | |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-up | Online sign-up form; page built within days | Phone call and a stack of sheets |
| Ordering | Online, any time, from anywhere | Cash and paper at the school |
| Attribution | School name on every order | Sorted by hand |
| Fulfilment | Ship, or local pickup after the fundraiser | Pickup only |
| Who does the work | The person who built it, on a flat monthly plan | A hosting company plus a maintenance vendor |
In their words
“We are rolling this out to the kids on Sunday!”
The first fundraiser page went to a Seneca County 4-H club on March 13, 2025 — and the club leader's reply came the same day. That is the point of the platform: a group signs up, a page appears, and the fundraiser starts that weekend.
“I like the added touches! … THANK YOU! We are rolling this out to the kids on Sunday!”
4-H club leader, Seneca County · March 2025
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