By Amy Fairweather
December 12, 2017
Hopefully by now you are noticing that each week Collaborate Freeport is bringing to light a new voice from our community to scribe about a value they or their organization is championing. Last week, Dean Wright articulated the power of giving back to those who are less fortunate. The week before that, Jack Carey from the Freeport Park District painted a symphonic picture of the importance our parks play in the outdoor experience. Jessica Modica from the Freeport Art Museum expressed the importance of always learning and the power of storytelling to help engage people with what art museums have to offer.
This week, Collaborate Freeport would like to give a huge thanks to our partner FHN for generously donating 50 percent of the proceeds from the annual Festival of Trees Gala. FHN fully realizes the important link between what it means to be ALL IN and the health of community. They recognize that it takes education, advocacy and willpower to champion those values that will help transform us into a more whole, vibrant and engaged county. For their mighty efforts as an institution and a lead employer in the area we are grateful.
We are swiftly sliding into a new year and Collaborate Freeport is finalizing the 2018 marketing plan that will continue to help place Freeport and Stephenson County on the map while accelerating the brand into a broader region. We are strategically aligning the ALL IN Freeport campaign in locations we’ve never been such as, and not limited to, multiple Metra train stops in the Chicago area and billboards along Route 20, Janesville and Beloit, and near Madison, Wisconsin. We will do day samplings of our local flavors at the Belvidere Oasis on I-90 while having a large presence in the interior of the high-traffic stop. Our goal is to plant new seeds about who and where we are through simple yet significant messaging.
In 2018 we will be launching a co-op marketing plan that will connect local businesses with marketing efforts in a more cohesive and comprehensive way. Businesses that choose to collaborate in this effort will be able to promote their brand to a larger market while simultaneously helping fund the Collaborate Freeport initiative as well.
Our brand-new website freeport-all-in.com is evolving and growing with hundreds of hits every day. We encourage you and your organization to visit the event page and enter in upcoming events to market to a wider audience. Please engage with us and send us feedback! This website was built to be a community generator to help inform, excite, educate and lead people into and around our community in a user-friendly way. If you haven’t been yet, check it out.
Launching by year’s end and into the new year are six interview-style videos we’ve been diligently crafting to help tell our community story. They touch on our region’s hard work and entrepreneurial spirit, livability, the downtown, history, outdoor experience, always learning and much more. You will see yourself and others in them as we slowly roll them out on social media and on our website and we encourage you to share them when you see them.
We look forward to what 2018 has to offer! We believe that the ordinary can be extraordinary and that there is beauty in imperfection. People work better together when we celebrate similarities over differences, and as a united community we will keep the momentum of growth in our region moving forward.
Journal Standard article link.
