Block X Block: Start Something Clean
Our office has been located on Hendricks Avenue, in the San Marco Historic District of Jacksonville, Florida, for the past four years. Hendricks Avenue is a vibrant, busy street with a mix of independent business, restaurants, and professional services offices. We noticed that the neighborhood, our home and place of business, wasn't living up to its potential. The amount of litter on the street was rising at an alarming rate. The increased litter on our street can impact our quality of life on a variety of levels including crime, property values, harm to wildlife, and perception of the neighborhood—and our agency.
We started Block x Block™, a community initiative designed to bring back the beauty to our surroundings, elevate the standards of the neighborhood, and motivate others to do the same. By picking up the trash on our block, we are making a big change to our immediate physical environment. We worked with our business neighbors to join together, and all have a hand in making this area a better place to work and live. With the help of neighboring businesses, we all took responsibility for a section of Hendricks Avenue. Each week, we clean our section of the street. We deposit the trash in our trashcans to be picked up on our regularly scheduled trash pick-up day. Weekly trash pick-up only takes about 30 minutes. The influx of garbage also motivated Brunet-García to initiate a recycling program through a private collector, since the service is not offered by the city. By tackling one section of the street, the task is manageable and we all come together for a common goal.
Target market
- Businesses along Hendricks Avenue
- Potential litter bugs using Hendricks Avenue
- The Jacksonville community at large
Positioning
We created Block x Block not only to clean our street but also to inspire others to clean up their own neighborhood—making Jacksonville a cleaner place one block at a time! In order to spread the word through the city, we branded the initiative and created collateral material, website and social networking profiles to support our efforts. We also produced two video animation "commercials," posters that were hung in storefronts throughout the block, t-shirts to be worn on clean-up duty, and other promotional items including stickers and window clings.
Public Relations Tactics
- Earth Day Kick-off all street clean up
- Social networking: 141 Facebook fans and 63 Twitter followers in first three months
- On-going communications through social networking sites and neighborhood clean up events
Results
- Article in the Florida Times-Union
- Broadcast coverage on WJXT and WTLV-12
- Neighborhood businesses have hosted their own clean up and engaged their customers and friends
- Possible partnerships with local organizations and businesses for future Block x Block initiatives
- Additional neighborhoods in Jacksonville have contact us about starting a clean-up
