What types of signage are people posting at their projects to identify the contribution of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds? Are you acknowledging ARRA funding on your project’s signage? Recently I visited two energy projects funded by ARRA. One was under construction and the other had been completed over the summer. The two projects were separated only by a few hundred miles but were in different States and had received funding from different ARRA programs.
As I toured the first project, an energy retrofit of a city hall, I noticed two men working on demolition. I stopped and spoke with them for a few minutes. The conversation went something like this:
Me: “If you weren’t doing this job, what would you be doing?”
Them: “We were unemployed before this, so we would probably still be unemployed.”
Me: “Did you ever imagine that the stimulus would touch you and impact your lives in such a direct way as creating a job for you?”
[A slight pause…]
Them: “This is a stimulus job?”
The next day, while touring a library in another city in another State, I stopped to talk to the librarian about all the energy improvements installed in her building during the summer. After hearing a glowing report on how great the improvements were, I asked the same question to the librarian:
Me: “Did you ever imagine that the stimulus would touch you and impact your life in such a direct way as improving the building you work in?”
Librarian: “This was a stimulus project?”
Although these exchanges may not be representative of all ARRA projects going on across the country, they do make you reflect on the role and importance of signage for projects. After the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) put people to work on public projects across the country. Even today, you can walk on a sidewalk with “WPA” stamped in the concrete, or see signs of that era’s stimulus in the cornerstone of a neighborhood school that reads “WPA.” These are visible signs commemorating projects that were undertaken more than 70 years ago using “stimulus” funds. Yet, today, there are people working on projects who don’t know they are funded by stimulus dollars, and building tenants who don’t realize the upgrades they are so proud of were paid for with stimulus funds.
What types of signage are people posting at their projects to identify the contribution of ARRA funds? Are you acknowledging ARRA funding on your project’s signage? If you’re not, maybe you should. Maybe we all should.
Content for this blog post courtesy of Jim Arwood, Southwest State Regional Coordinator, NASEO