New signs to bring positive message to residents in NYM

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

A positivity project, born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, has recently come to fruition in New York Mills. The project, sponsored in part by the NY Mills Regional Cultural Center, can be seen around town on street corners and in front of many homes.

“It started during the pandemic when there was just a lot of things going on around the world that seemed really negative,” said Cultural Center Executive Director Betsy Roder. “We were brainstorming ideas to share positive messaging. So we toyed with a bunch of different ideas and it came together about a year ago now—that we would gather community designs. We wanted it to be an engagement opportunity for the community, we didn’t want it just to be something that we put out, we wanted people to be a part of it.”

The Cultural Center put out a call for designs from community members from any age and every walk of life. Around 25 designs were submitted and the staff at the Cultural Center got to work coming up with a plan to print and distribute signs. Realizing that the printing would be more costly than originally anticipated, sponsorships were sought out.

“We asked the Civic & Commerce Association and the Lion’s Club for sponsorship support,” said Roder. “They each gave $500, so that really paid for the printing of the signs and the Cultural Center managed the logistics of gathering the designs, getting them to the printer—we were able to work with Signs Plus, which is a local company, to get them printed and they were great partners as well.”

Roder said that a large amount of youth participated in the submission process and around 25 designs were eventually gathered from community members.

“We really wanted it to be a community focused, community engaged project,” she said. “The vision was that as people came into the community of NY Mills, they would see this positive messaging all around town and know that it was a community that was positive, welcoming, and a good place to visit, live and work.”

There are a surplus of signs, and many of them were featured at the Lion’s Walking Trail in the South Point Addition during the Eagle’s Nest PTA’s Dash and Bash on Saturday, Aug. 19. The additional signs are available for anyone to pick up if they would like to feature one in their front yard.

“People seem to be reacting really positively to it,” said Roder. “I think it’s fun for the people who’s designs ended up getting printed, I think there’s a sense of pride that their design was selected and now was being shared. It really has all been positive feedback so far.”