Client: City of Morris / University of Minnesota Morris COPC Project

Dimensions: Two billboards, 24' x 10' each

Project Overview:
The City of Morris, Minnesota and the University of Minnesota Morris were co-recipients of a Community Outreach Partnership Centers (COPC) grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to address key areas for community revialization. A key area of the grant was to create resident-backed strategies to spur economic growth and the reduction of crime. For this key element, the partnership chose to focus on drug prevention, more specifically, methamphetamine.

Project Details:
In addition to producing a documentary Meth in the Heartland: A Community's Response, additional media was needed to cover the audience-base regarding the community's response to the methamphetamine problem rural Minnesota was experiencing. The grant also covered the use of billboard public service announcements for general audience messaging.

We developed two billboards that were place in several areas throughout the community. We brought together community leaders to show that it takes a community to solve the meth problem. The first billboard featured a group photo of community leaders to show the community's commitment to the methamphetamine problem in rural Minnesota.

The second billboard featured a before and after photo of a methamphetamine user with the theme of 'Extreme Makeover: Meth Edition.' The photos were provided by the Faces of Meth project in Oregon.