COMMUNITY PROJECTS To share your ideas follow the log in instructions below. Be sure to include your contact info and publications name. If you are uploading an image, be sure to convert it to either a GIF or JPG (300kb max). INSTRUCTIONS TO ENTER YOUR IDEA: CLICK HERE to LOG IN user name login: publisher password: ifpa Then click on the green NEW button. To add a PHOTO you must enter your text, then hit SAVE and then click the UPLOAD box Community Guide Our community guide is a publication that is printed with the village and chamber of commerce. Most of the advertisers listed are chamber members, but others were not excluded from participating. The finished product is mailed to every home in the village separate from our newspaper. It includes all the village phone numbers, a message from the mayor and the chamber president, and the village ordinances. Also included is a list of parks and what each park offers. The back of the book includes a school listing, church list, and a complete business list with phone numbers. We sell the advertising as well as the local chamber and we bill all the clients for the ads. The books are printed in house. Hometown Hero Awards Reminder Publications: This is an annual event where our readers nominate ordinary citizens who do extraordinary service in their communities. Readers submit a nomination form that we then run in our papers along with a picture of the "hero". We partner with a local photographer to take professional photos of all the heros. We then partner with a banquest hall and honor all of the heros at a special evening event with light appetizers, etc. Every year the event gets bigger and bigger and we now have 200- 400 people attend the banquet. It is a very powerful evening that recognizes good deeds at a time when most media only dwell on the negative. The annual Hometown Hero Awards were founded to pay tribute to outstanding western Massachusetts residents and businesspeople in the memory of the late Anne Buendo, the co-founder of the company. Camrose Booster Ltd. idea submission Stand out from the crowd in your local arena or sports stadium The Camrose Booster purchased three season seats in our local arena. We had the hard, plastic seats recovered with padded, durable leather. Note our logo stitched into the seat backs. We had a table professionally built to replace the middle seat components. A laser engraving shop was hired to burn our message and logo into the maple. At each game we take a photo of a fan from the crowd. This photo is published in an advertisement in The Camrose Booster. When that fan spots his/her photo they win the right to sit in The Best Seats in the Arena for the next home game. We ve arranged for pizza and pop to be delivered to our special guests within the first five minutes of the game. Fans love it! And we get plenty of recognition for this novel idea. So can you! For more information contact: Ron Pilger, The Camrose Booster, Camrose, Alberta 780-672-3142 rpilger@cable-lynx.net Reminder Rally Section We partnered with our local collegiate baseball team the Holyoke Blue Sox and created the Reminder Rally section in the bleachers. Every week the team supplies us with tickets to the home games. We pass those tickets on to a local nonprofit organization. We run a photo in the paper featuring the organization and the date that they will be in the Reminder Rally section. The ballpark announcer welcomes the organization the night of the game on behalf of Reminder Publications. This is truly a win, win, win program. The nonprofit organization has an opportunity to bring their staff and members to a baseball game for free. The Holyoke Blue Sox get people in their seats. And Reminder Publications gets to rally around ten deserving nonprofit organizations. World Santa Project Our newspapers works with the local Rotary club and the local Salvation Army to provide new winter coats, hat, gloves and boots for over 100 needy children every Christmas. We provide the advertsing to collection cash donations. Each week we run the names of the folks who have donated and list grows and grows. We get the list of names and the sizes from the Salvation Army. Then the newspaper and the Rotary purchase everything from local businesses and box and wrap each child's winter wear. The Salvation Army folks then distribute it. This has been very successful, even in these tough times. We have many groups, like the third grade class at East Montpelier elementary, who does a bake sale or sells chex mix and then gives the money to World Santa.