Citizen’s Choice Winner: Cards Over Clicks Sweeps Four Categories

Denny Loewer hoped his young nonprofit, Cards Over Clicks, might have a chance at one Citizen’s Choice Award.

Instead, Loewer and Cards Over Clicks won four — more categories than any other organization or entity in this year’s awards.

Cards Over Clicks was named the winner of Who Makes the Greatest Difference in the Lives of Others? and Which Local Nonprofit Makes the Biggest Difference? Loewer, with Cards Over Clicks, also won Best Local Hero and Who Goes Above and Beyond to Care for Others?

The Citizen’s Choice Awards, powered by the Fayette Chamber of Commerce, are nominated and voted on by local citizens. And judging from the results, Cards Over Clicks has developed some ardent fans in a remarkably short amount of time.

“We’re beyond grateful and humbled to be chosen for all four of those Citizen Choice Awards,” Loewer said. “Certainly, a big underdog, being the new kid on the block, and we are just incredibly blessed that the community has really reacted and engaged with us since our founding.”

Cards Over Clicks began in August 2025 as Loewer’s retirement passion project, built around a simple idea: Give children something interesting enough to make them look up from a screen.

Since then, the nonprofit has distributed more than 5,000 free customized educational card packs to students from pre-K through 12th grade — representing roughly 85,000 to 90,000 individual trading cards.

“The whole reason that I started Cards Over Clicks was that our world today needs more love and kindness than ever before,” Loewer said. “People don’t know how much you care until you show them how much you care.”

The packs combine trading cards — sports, Pokémon and other popular collectibles — with age-appropriate educational worksheets. Loewer creates separate materials for pre-K through second grade, third through fifth grade, sixth through eighth grade, and high school.

One worksheet for younger children teaches them how to read an analog clock. A high school version asks students to identify all 50 states on a map.

At community events, Loewer sets up tables where children can select a pack for free.

“The kids ask how much are the cards, and when I say free, they give me this Macaulay Culkin Home Alone ah look,” Loewer said. “They are like they can’t believe it.”

There is, however, some learning tucked inside the gift.

“There is a worksheet in there that I want you to work on,” he tells them.

For Loewer, cards were a natural choice. He said collecting baseball cards helped him learn to read as a child. Today’s card world reaches much further than baseball, with children collecting everything from football and soccer cards to Pokémon, Disney Lorcana, One Piece and Star Wars.

Loewer sees the physical cards as a tool for reading, math, organization, decision making, negotiation — and conversation.

He once watched three third graders receive packs at a baseball tournament, then sit together in the grass beneath a shade tree looking through their cards and working on the worksheets.

“They were just kids being kids,” Loewer said. “They were talking, they were socializing, and most importantly, not a single phone was in sight.”

That moment gets to the heart of the nonprofit’s name.

“Cards Over Clicks doesn’t mean technology is bad,” Loewer said. “It simply means that sometimes we need to choose people over the screens, conversations over repetitive scrolling, and the connection over clicks.”

Loewer, 60, retired last year after 31 years with the Social Security Administration. He served in several roles during his career, including as a national training instructor and fraud investigator. He also spent four years in the U.S. Navy submarine service.

His experience as a trainer carries directly into Cards Over Clicks. He spent years turning complicated government policies into material people could understand, and now applies that same instinct to educational activities for children.

But the moments Loewer remembers most are not about worksheets completed perfectly.

At one event, a fifth grader completed his grade-level worksheet, then accepted Loewer’s challenge to try material intended for older students. Eventually, Loewer handed him the high school worksheet identifying U.S. states.

“I said, ‘Well, let’s give it a try,’” Loewer said.

The boy spent much of the remaining festival running around asking adults and other children for help identifying states. When he returned, he was disappointed with his results.

Loewer saw something different.

“I told him, I said, ‘You know what? I am really proud of you. I saw you go. You were asking people for questions. You were talking. You were, you know, you were engaged. You were trying to learn.’”

Then Loewer told him something he hopes children will carry beyond a pack of trading cards.

“Never stop learning, because once you get that knowledge in your head, that is more gold,” Loewer said. “That is more gold and more value than you could ever have in your life.”

He let the boy choose two additional packs.

“He just about cried in front of me,” Loewer said.

Cards Over Clicks is also beginning to work more directly with teachers and community organizations. Loewer said a local fourth-grade English teacher contacted him about using card packs as an incentive for students to reach a monthly reading goal. He sees similar opportunities for math classes and other academic goals.

“I want to collaborate with more local teachers and help them assist their classroom goals,” Loewer said. “Teachers are where my heart’s at.”

The organization has already received help from other local nonprofits and groups. The Eden Project helped assemble 2,500 card packs during a packing effort in June. Loewer has also provided cards to Bloom and the I-58 Mission and partnered with Mathnasium in Fayetteville, where students can earn points toward free card packs.

The biggest need now is not cards.

Loewer said people have been generous with donated collections — generous enough that boxes are beginning to surround him in his workshop.

What Cards Over Clicks needs most, he said, are volunteers to help assemble packs and financial contributions to cover operating expenses, particularly printing. Loewer estimated printing the educational worksheets costs about $900.

His wife, Lori, has supported the project from the beginning, including the decision to put some of his retirement money into launching the nonprofit.

“This couldn’t have happened without her,” Loewer said.

For Loewer, sweeping four Citizen’s Choice categories matters not simply because of the awards. He hopes the recognition gives Cards Over Clicks a larger platform to reach more children, teachers and families.

“The recognition of the Citizen Choice Awards is awesome, but really what excites me is I hope it gives Cards Over Clicks a bigger platform to reach more children and parents,” Loewer said.

And despite thousands of card packs already distributed — and a voting base enthusiastic enough to carry Cards Over Clicks to more wins than anyone else — Loewer’s own measure of success remains remarkably small.

“We all should strive to have an impact on one child,” Loewer said. “One — that’s all I’m looking for — is if I can make an impact on one child who, you know, who doesn’t give up and keeps pursuing success, that’s what really matters.”

Learn more about Cards Over Clicks at www.CardsOverClicks.org.