The following are samples of what my PR course team and I accomplished for our client, the Ted K. Center, during the Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 semesters at SUNY Plattsburgh.
The Ted K. Center is a non-profit youth center which provides educational, social and recreational opportunities for the children who live at Plattsburgh Housing Authority.
The Ted K. Center’s van broke down last summer while transporting children. With funding already minimal, the center looked to us for help in raising $15,000 for a new vehicle and increasing awareness by planning a full-scale public relations campaign.
During the Fall 2014 semester, my team members and I created a content analysis of the small youth center industry.
For this content analysis, we researched 11 other small youth centers across America and compared it to the Ted K. Center. We concluded that what made the biggest difference in funding for these successful youth centers was being involved in the community and having a strong presence on their social media.
Our campaign: “Ted K. for Earth Day’s Million Can Redemption Plan.”
In honor of Earth Day (April 22nd), the Ted K. Center teamed up with SUNY Plattsburgh to collect one million cans and bottles throughout the month of April.
This initiative brought together the Plattsburgh community and utilized the Ted K. Center’s social media, increasing their online presence. This project also benefited the environment by making new containers out of recycled products rather than from raw materials, which reduced energy usage, pollution and greenhouse gases. All proceeds went towards the Ted K. Center who were in desperate need of a new van.
We put together a promotional video, which you can view here.
Our sponsors included:
I created the content for this local business-targeted flyer persuading businesses to donate their redeemables during the month of April.
We conducted a road show of sorts, presenting to breakfast and noon Rotary, Clinton County Legislature, the city council and more.
We held a news conference Monday, February 23, 2015 at The Ted K. Center and invited local media. The following morning, our story made the front page of the Press-Republican and Cardinal Points. We were also featured on the WPTZ website, on WNBZ‘s radio and were televised on Mountain Lake Journal PBS.
We had about 40 businesses donating their cans and bottles to our campaign, thanks to our partnership with the Plattsburgh Distributing Company.
We conducted a contest between the 60 SUNY Plattsburgh clubs and organizations on board and the winner received $200 towards their philanthropy through memorabilia donated by Pepsi Co.
This also became a campus-wide initiative to recycle clean.
We conducted neighborhood sweeps every Saturday and Sunday in April, knocking on all residents’ doors collecting cans and bottles. SUNY Plattsburgh clubs, organizations, sports teams and Greek life were involved, volunteering their time to participate in the sweeps. I participated in the first neighborhood sweep to make sure all groups involved knew the correct messaging.
We were featured again on the WPTZ website and the Press Republican about the neighborhood sweeps.
We also held a contest between all the dorms on campus, and the dorm that recycled the cleanest won a pizza party at the end of April. In order to inform all dorm residents, our team went ‘dorm storming,’ knocking on all dorm room doors with quarter sheets about our campaign and contest. Twice a week, I checked two dorm buildings’ quality of recycling. My team members checked the other dorms on campus.
At the end of every week in April, the campus center displayed the top-5 clubs and organizations that had donated the most bags of cans and bottles and the top dorm with the cleanest recyclables. This was another initiative to have those competing work harder.
Every week, I stopped by the participating businesses and picked up their bottles and cans collected. Then I dropped them off at Northern Cakes Redemption Center and to donate the credit to our campaign.
For Earth Day: We were featured on WNBZ‘s radio on Earth Day.
Plattsburgh Housing Outlet celebrated the Million Can Redemption Plan’s Earth Day from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. People dropped off bags of redeemable bottles and cans or monetary donations. Each donation of one hundred redeemables (approximately a large garbage bag) or $5 earned a raffle entry for two months of Casella Zero-SortⓇ residential recycling, fun Pepsi prizes and coupons for free products from Dunkin’ Donuts, Taco Bell and KFC.
The first 50 donors received a voucher for a free ice cream cone, pound of deli meat or 6” sub from Northern Cakes Redemption Center. The Plattsburgh Housing Outlet was also offering tours of their energy efficient homes, and Della Honda showcased a 2015 Honda Civic Hybrid.
I participated by showing cars where to drop off their redeemables and increased awareness to cars passing by.
I tabled during ECOFest, a festival celebration where all those from the SUNY Plattsburgh community join to celebrate Earth Day.
While SUNY Plattsburgh held RELAY for Life, we collected redeemables in the beginning of the event. There was also a raffle to win the Rockstar energy drink electric sign and a Mountain Dew cooler donated from Pepsi. All bags donated were able to also go towards the club or organization’s name for the campus contest.
In the last week of April, a few team members and myself drove a van picking up all the redeemables the participating businesses collected over the month of April. We also did one last sweep in the surrounding college housing area.
An Editorial in the Press Republican was written about an update on our campaign on April 29.
SUNY Plattsburgh published a final conclusion news release about our campaign.
Once the campaign ended, we totaled over 202,000 redeemables collected and raised over $11,000. Support from our sponsors include monetary donations, manpower and supplies, which is equivalent to $5,000. Collecting the redeemables and receiving support from our sponsors has made us exceed our goal in raising $15,000 for the Ted K. Center to purchase a new van.
We totaled 10 local and regional media hits.
Awareness of the Ted K. Center and their social media has also exponentially increased throughout the Plattsburgh community.
Over the course of the campaign, the “likes” on the Facebook page went from 333 to 585, an increase of 43 percent. The daily reach of the posts was 40,799 people total. The posts reached a total of 41,571 people. The total amount of daily engaged users was 3,736 people.
The Twitter account, which was created in January, now has 135 followers. Tweets made a total of 36,607 impressions. Tweets engaged 2,639 people. There was an engagement rate of 7.21 percent 179 people clicked on the Ted K. Center profile from the account’s tweets. 220 favorites on tweets. 218 retweets on tweets.
My totaled credited work hours for this campaign was 125 hours.
Ted K. Earth Day Million Can Redemption Plan Website
Jennifer Gioia Rowland 