Innovation Description and Benefit:

One of our primary Public Information goals was to implement activities that moved the community toward ownership of and strong support for the I-270 North Project. The plan focused on developing innovative and fun activities that the public would be excited to hear about and participate in. With the project groundbreaking coming in late April, we devised the strategy to host a fun, engaging, visual and easy-to-participate in virtual groundbreaking event. For this initial effort, we started with members of the Community Information Group, who were already engaged with the project and were strong supporters. We also included leaders within the project community and asked them to record the video and created a platform to which they could easily upload the finished project. When individuals who reside or work within the community post messages, it increases the exposure level of the messages, saving us time, simplifying our information distribution systems and potential increasing the power of our safety messages and ultimately more positive actions based on it.