VIA Coordinators Create Convenient Ways for Employees to Participate
With an organization that services 13 cities seven days a week, traveling 90 routes a day, Coordinators Daniel Rodriguez and Jerri Ann Jones decided that they needed to reassess the accessibility of the NAP program to their busy transit employees. While they looked at several different tactics, they ultimately focused their efforts on two main objectives - convenience and creative visibility.
When looking at the convenience and ease of which their employees could produce artwork, Daniel and Jerri Ann first looked at what types of medium most people had access to in their daily lives. The answer they came up with was photography. Creating a special four day employee incentive, they allowed employees to submit smart phone digital photographs (still following all the NAP guidelines) by simply emailing the image along with the registration information to their attention. Daniel and Jerri Ann then had each of photographs printed in-house on heavy gloss paper creating exhibit ready images with great ease to the participants. Thirty-three employees took advantage of this incentive, one of which was Scott Bishop who was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Amateur category for his piece entitled “Parts of the Machine”.
Call for VIA employees to enter their smart phone photographs in the NAP show;
“Parts of the Machine” by Scott Bishop, who received an Honorable Mention for his smart phone photograph.
Along with this incentive, Daniel & Jerri Ann also held a “Family Art Day” for employees and their family members. They provided art supplies and materials free of charge to eligible participants allowing them to create a piece of art to enter in the show. To help spark even more interest at the event, anyone who registered their piece that day was entered into a raffle for five $25 gift cards to Main Events Entertainment, a local family fun center. This event encouraged seventeen more people to enter the exhibit.
Daniel stated that, “these events were definitely a persuasive factor in enticing some employees from simply contemplating participating to actually submitting an entry.” Daniel also credits creating additional promotional materials that display the creative visibility of the program to the increase in this year’s participation. The proof of their success lies in the 210 pieces currently on display in The Grand at VIA Villa.