vacayreveal

Major New Community Recruitment Campaign Invites You to Vacay Every Day

vacayreveal

If your early evening stroll took you Silver Beach County Park’s approach to the South Pier in St. Joseph tonight and you saw an interesting group of people watching a presentation under the Silver Beach Pavilion, you were a peripheral witness to what local leaders hope will be the launch of a long running, community-wide, multi-media recruitment campaign designed to attract new people to move to, live in, work and play everyday in Michigan’s Great Southwest.

You saw the beginning of the Cornerstone Alliance community-based initiative called simply Vacay Every Day! It will become a full frontal assault to stem the tide of population decline with an ambitious goal to increase the population of Berrien County by 10-percent over the next 10 years.

Cornerstone Alliance President Rob Cleveland says, “The equation for long-term success is simple – we need more people.” Cleveland says, “A review of the Michigan population statistics shows that we have largely reshuffled our population instead of growing it. There are tens of thousands of people coming into our community every year. They come here to swim at the great beaches, to tastes the finest wines, to eat amazing food and to enjoy cross country and downhill skiing. We hear it time and time again, that they don’t want to leave.” So, the full court press is about to begin to remind people that if they move here, they can literally Vacay Every Day.

According to Cleveland, “The Cornerstone Alliance Board of Directors is supporting the initiative because they know that this is a community-wide challenge. We are expecting the dollars spent to be leveraged by other community partners who see the importance of increasing our population.” Cleveland goes on to stress, “This is not a marketing campaign.  Vacay Every Day is a recruitment campaign. Its sole focus is to let people know you don’t have to leave from your vacation.  You can stay in Southwest Michigan to live, work, play and vacay – every day.”

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Cornerstone Alliance convened it’s valued Chairman’s Advisory Council members at the Silver Beach Pavilion tonight to unveil the concept. Cleveland told them, “The economy is very strong, We’ve had tremendous growth and expansion in this community. We’ve got companies like Whirlpool Corporation and Spectrum Health Lakeland that are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the community and they’re all doing that because they’re betting on the future.” However, Cleveland warned, “Quite simply, we’re capped. Just like many other communities, we’re capped in our capacity because of the number of people we have.”

Vacay Every Day is designed solely to recruit new people to the state of Michigan. Cleveland reported, “The statistics quite honestly aren’t very good. In the last year the state of Michigan had a 0.2-percent population growth. The state of Michigan had the lowest birth rate in the last 71 years. That’s the lowest birth rate since World War II. To be perfectly honest, Berrien County numbers are even worse than that. Over the last 7 years we’ve had a very small population decline. So everything we’re doing here today is to try and reverse that population decline.”

The Vacay Every Day campaign was dreamed up by, and a vision of, the talented team at Cornerstone Alliance, and brought to life and made a reality by the equally talented and award winning team at King Media.

As Cleveland explained, “The program capitalizes on one of our strongest economic advantages, and that’s our tourism industry. For the last couple of decades we’ve had a lot of great community partners and many of you here tonight helped build the system that brings tens of thousands of people every year and millions of dollars into this community. So we’re going to take advantage of the great work of St. Joe Today, and the Southwest Michigan Tourist Council, and what they’ve done over the years and we’re going to recruit the very people who come here and enjoy their vacations on our golf courses, skiing and tubing and the great amenities that we have in the community.”

Berrien County has a population of roughly 155,000 people, and Cleveland said, “Tonight we’re going to tell you that we have a very ambitious goal of increasing the Berrien County population by 10-percent over the next ten years. When you consider that we’ve already suffered a small population decline, that is a very ambitious goal. But this is the first step. This won’t do everything. So it’s going to take getting more housing here, it’s going to take investing in infrastructure, and transportation, the kinds of things that the Strategic Leadership Council is working on, but this is another launching point to bring more people into the area.”

Whirlpool Corporation Vice President Jeff Noel addressed the problem head on, saying, “Growing the population affects each and everyone of us. There is a direct correlation between everything you all do to make this community better, and how we can make it even better, with a growing population.”

Noel told the Advisory Council, “54 of our global leaders are in town right now for a global leadership meeting, and 10 of them have never been here before, but I’ll bet you that over the next three years 15 of them will be asked to move here. They’re already creating a perception of our community based upon what they see.” The issue stems from the fact that, as Noel says, “When we recruit, we’re competing against communities all over the country, we’re competing against Chicago, we’re even competing against countries themselves, much less beautiful cities in those countries for this kind of top talent.”

In a population primer of sorts, Noel told the group, “Growth brings more growth. Growth brings new stores, a new sense of activity, and all kinds of things from which people can get a sense that it’s worth buying a house, and moving their families here.” He talked of one candidate being recruited who is still on hold because they’re not convinced that the growth of the community is what it’s going to take for them to relocate their families. They love the beaches, they love the schools, but they’re nervous.” He admitted, “I wanted that recruit not just because they were great, but because they’ve got three children. With three children going into the local public schools, give or take with federal and state funding, that’s about $40,000 that goes right into the school system here if they come.”

He added, “If all 440 of the folks that we try to recruit actually said yes and brought in their children, think about what that would do in terms of adding to the revenue base for schools, adding to the community and the population.”

Noel says, “In the end you need population growth. We as employers need it because we do need to see new stores, we do need to see a vibrancy that goes with a growing population. We do need to see not-for-profits that are being properly supported so that you can continue to have the Symphony and so many other things that make this wonderful community so special.”

Noel didn’t need to remind the business men and women in the crowd tonight, “In the end, if you’re in business, the one thing you know is if you’re not growing, you’re not moving forward. It’s the same as it relates to population and community, and I can tell you that a growing community makes it a lot easier to recruit the people we need to be here. Trying to recruit and attract talent is not just an issue that is unique because of the economy, it’s an issue because our size community makes it a challenge. Once you get them here? They don’t want to leave! But getting them here is a challenge and getting them here is one of the best ways that we can help companies grow, help our schools grow, help our not for profits grow, and help the tourism base grow.”

Noel applauded Cornerstone Alliance, “For taking the initiative to put this on the forefront, because this is a community that I have discovered over my years in being here, when it really makes up its mind to do something, it does it in a huge, great and outstanding fashion, but sometimes we fail to get focused, sometimes we fail to say let’s make this a priority, and sometimes we fail for all of us to get our shoulders behind something, but my goodness, look at this development, look at everything around us, when all of you get your shoulders aligned in the same direction, there is no better place and no other place on the planet that gets more done in a proper way than Michigan’s Great Southwest.”

Christina Frank, Vice President of External Affairs at Cornerstone says, “The Vacay Every Day campaign will make a lasting impact on the economy in Southwest Michigan,” suggesting, “By leveraging one of our community’s greatest assets – a thriving tourism industry – we will be able to successfully target, engage and educate an audience that has the greatest potential to relocate to our community.  These individuals already have a familiarity and a love for the community. Now we will get the chance to show them the opportunities available to not just vacation here, but also to live and work here.”

She profusely thanked Colleen King’s team at King Media, saying, “We owe them a ton of thanks for their creative time behind all of this and we are super excited to unveil Vacay Every Day!”

King Media shared the first six billboard concepts showing people, activities and seasons that make Southwest Michigan great, and Frank says, “Many more concepts and pieces will follow. This is a community-based initiative and is a non-branded campaign. Although headed up by Cornerstone Alliance, their name will not be on it, nor will any other name.”

Cleveland wrapped things up saying, “We are blessed to live in a place where people spend their entire year saving their time and money to come and visit us while we get to live here every day. We get to Vacay Everyday, and want to recruit others to live that lifestyle too by moving here as year round residents and members of the local workforce community.”

Everything in the campaign is directed to the website. King Media created a microsite, Vacay Every Day, and everything will be directed to that website, where you will be able to fill out your name and address and you will sent a packet of information about living and moving to St. Joe, Benton Harbor and Berrien County.

Clevelands says the aggressive campaign will employ multi-media channels including print, radio, TV, billboards, social media and more, with everything directing you to Vacay Every Day.

Check it out online by clicking this link: http://Vacay-EveryDay.com