Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 1, 1993 TAG: 9311010111
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That alone is enough to draw attention to the simple phrases printed above and below it:
"Utilities Not Included. People Are Homeless. TAP Helps."
Each year, Ad 2 - a group of young Roanoke-area advertising professionals - donates a public-service ad campaign to a community service agency.
The group selected Total Action Against Poverty for its 1993 project.
"What we found through surveys was that, although people strongly identified with the kinds of issues that TAP deals with, no one realized TAP had anything to do with those issues," said Tony Pearman, chairman of Ad 2's public-service committee.
"There was a lack of knowledge of what TAP was and what it did. We felt we needed to explain the diversity of TAP's services."
The project debuted several months ago with a television spot where messages of need flashed and faded to the strains of bluesy music.
A billboard at Interstate 581 and Elm Avenue appeared shortly afterward. Hanging from it was a trash can. "Over Two Million Served. People are Hungry. TAP Helps," the billboard read.
The latest project installment is a billboard with a homeless theme on U.S. 460 East just beyond the intersection at Gus Nicks Boulevard. A large cardboard box hangs from the center of it.
"It's a great way to show a very dramatic message," Pearman said. "Hopefully, it will make people look at it, recognize it and remember it."
This week, 50 3-foot-tall cardboard boxes - donated by a Roanoke box company - will carry the billboard's theme into area churches, shopping malls, businesses and service organizations. The boxes are postered with the same "Utilities Not Included" message, Pearman said.
The campaign has generated good response, said Janet Phillips Burrow, TAP's community advancement director.
"The response we've gotten is not only in terms of people calling to see how they could support the work, but people looking for ways to access services for themselves or a family member or a friend," she said. "It's helped increase awareness in the community, both in terms of users of the services that TAP provides, as well as people looking for a way of helping the agency with money or time."
The campaign is a first for TAP, Phillips Burrow said. Never in the agency's 28 years has its message been taken to the airwaves or billboards, she said. The last time widespread attention was directed at the agency was in 1989, when fire destroyed TAP's Shenandoah Avenue headquarters.
"That event called attention in the community to TAP - but in a horrific and tragic way," Phillips Burrow said. "It's nice to be able to do this in a more positive way and not in reaction to tragedy."
Some 1,500 Roanoke-area residents are homeless, she said. Another 10,000 are one paycheck or medical emergency away from homelessness.
Several of TAP's 30 programs help the homeless. The TAP Transitional Living Center provides food, shelter and transitional services to prepare homeless people for independent living. A homeless intervention program provides deposit, rent or mortgage payments for low-income families and individuals who risk losing their homes because of catastrophe.
by CNB