Last summer, Office Sign Company had the opportunity to wrap a variety of utility boxes in Downtown Fargo as a way to help beautify the city. The project took a total of a few weeks to complete – including the art layout, printing, preparation of graphics, and installation. I looked at these files on my computer for hours, saw them coming out of our digital printer, and witnessed them being installed by Josh, our dread-headed vinyl install specialist, and never once paid close enough attention to the names on the side of the boxes. After last week, that all changed, and now I can’t help but notice the second name from the bottom: Casey Schaefer.
Ryan Fritz (OSC’s CEO) and I got a nice little tour through some Kilbourne-owned apartment complexes last week, and spent the day in awe of their architectural achievements. At the end of the tour, we were looking at a few more utility boxes outside of the soon-to-open Dillard building when Adrienne Olson (Director of Communication for Kilbourne Group) informed me of Casey’s story. I felt compelled to get back on the blog and share this with the world.
In the spring of 2018, the King House Buffet in downtown Fargo was vandalized. Brandon Conkins and his “little brother” (from the Big Brother/Big Sister Program) Casey came upon an incident where someone had shattered the front window at King House. Casey was very upset about what he witnessed, and wanted to make a difference. Together with Brandon, they started a GoFundMe page which raised over $250! At this point, Brandon reached out to Adrienne to see where he could send the funds in order to help the repair.
Per their rental agreement, Kilbourne was solely responsible for replacing the glass, so Adrienne couldn’t accept Casey’s generous offer to use his raised money to fix the broken window. But instead, Adrienne presented Casey & Brandon with a new way to use the funds they raised to add some more beauty to our community: the Utility Box wrap project!
The rest, as they say, is history. Casey’s name will now forever live on the sides of these utility boxes, all because he wanted to make his community a better place. His sponsorship dollars helped the BID/Downtown Community Partnership fund this project, and it was so successful that now BID plans to wrap even more this summer (as well as some city benches!). To learn more about the project, please contact Chris at chris@downtownfargo.com and see how you can support!
In the busyness of our summer schedule, I lose track of a lot of the cool things our community is doing. People like Casey (and Big Brother, Brandon) help me see the positive things being done in Fargo-Moorhead, and make me incredibly proud to be a part of this wonderful place I call “home.”
Written By: Jack Yakowicz
Contact at: jack@officesigncompany.com
Office Sign Company
