All Over Albany

Caught You Being Good Awards

Project: Caught You Being Good Awards. Community engagement is the secret to a successful urban neighborhood. In Albany, lots of our residents take the time to get involved. We want to celebrate that.

Who: Lark Street Business Improvement District

Short bio
The Lark Street Business Improvement District is an independent not-for-profit organization that works to build, sustain, and enhance a unique and prosperous living and business community for the residents, visitors, and merchants of the Lark Street Neighborhood of Albany, NY.

A description of the proposed project
Community engagement is the secret to a successful urban neighborhood. In Albany, lots of our residents take the time to get involved. We want to celebrate that.

Members of the Lark Street BID would distribute Caught You Being Good Awards to residents "caught" doing positive things in the community, like picking up trash, helping a neighbor with groceries, volunteering locally, or returning a wallet. Through social media, residents could nominate their neighbors or friends for an award for a good deed. A $10 gift card for a locally owned and operated business would be attached to each award.

We want this project to show our residents that when you do good things, good things happen. This program would not only draw attention to the personal work that goes into our community every day, but also attract new customers to our local businesses. We are lucky to have quite a few startups in our city who we could continue to support through this project.

How would the grant money help?
The $1,500 would be used to purchase gift cards from local businesses to be attached to the Caught You Being Good Awards. This grant is an appropriate funding source for this project because it will be used to support the existing startups in our community. After establishing the project, we would solicit donations from businesses and community members to continue it.