WCDA Wins Award for ‘Pay it Forward Home Makeover’ Campaign
The Wyoming Community Development Authority (WCDA) recently announced that they won an award for the 2022 National Council of State Housing Agencies, Annual Awards for Program Excellence.
The organization was given the award for their WCDA Home Makeover campaign, in which they completely transformed a Casper woman's home.
K2 Radio News previously reported that "They stripped the house and replaced many of the boards. They repainted the house and added shutters to the windows. They performed lawn treatment, which was donated by a local landscaper. They spruced up the curb appeal, adding a ton of plants and flowers, as well as a bench and some lawn lights. They repaired and replaced light fixtures within the house. They installed a new storm door and a new mailbox. And so much more. This was truly an all-hands-on-deck project for the employees of WCDA and various community members."
Read More: VIDEO: WCDA Provides 'Home Makeover' to Casper Family
Kassidy Sibrel, the Business Development and Marketing Manager for WCDA, told K2 Radio News that "Every year, WCDA does a Pay It Forward event. This year, we decided it might be fun to switch things up and do a Home Makeover. It was definitely a trial run, but it turned out amazing."
WCDA partnered with their advertising agency, The BARK Firm, as well as Cactus Productions, to film the project.
"BARK has been partnered with WCDA as their creative arm for near a decade now, and coming up with yearly clever campaigns and heart felt videos is what we LOVE to do for them," said Sommer Grogan, one of the creators and partners of The BARK Firm. "The Pay It Forward video we produced last year was a pretty special deal and such a tangible giveback.
"We sat down with the WCDA team and concepted the entire project, and worked with our friends and partners, Cactus Productions to film and execute the final video.
"WCDA worked extremely hard to pull all the pieces together internally, gather community donations (there were a lot!) and get everyone rallied for an epic giveback where they gave hours of their time for one special woman and her kids!
"It was a beautiful, multi-team effort with some serious results!"
Those results brought Alannah and her family to tears.
"I am just so thankful for WCDA," she stated, with glistening eyes. "They made it easy. I didn't even know that we could even qualify for a home so just speaking of that I was grateful. And then just to have this - an opportunity and everything they're doing for us - it's just fantastic."
The campaign was designed to be a 'community give-back,' and that's exactly what it was. But it was also because of the community that the makeover was able to happen at all.
"A lot of what we were able to get done with the house was through donations from community partners, which was amazing," Sibrel beamed. "Aside from that, WCDA gives our employees eight volunteer hours throughout the year to use however they choose. So we actually used the morning half of our staff retreat day and had all of our employees work on the house, which was super cool. I think it made even more of an impact knowing that we didn't hire out any help. It was all done from our team members here in the office."
It was something that changed Alannah's life, and it resulted in the award from the National Council of State Housing Agencies. The award was in the Communications category, specifically for Special Event Marketing.
"Our Home Makeover took place last summer, where our WCDA employees put all hands-on deck to transform our homeowner, Alannah’s, home," WCDA wrote on their Facebook page. "Thank you to our amazing Casper community for their donations and our staff members that made this incredible project possible. We are so proud to take home an award for a project that truly changed the life for our homeowner. Wow, what an accomplishment WCDA!!"
It was a team effort, consisting of countless people and countless hours - all designed to change the life of one Casper woman.
"I feel so proud to work for an organization that honors our cultural values of teamwork and community through projects like this!" said Rachel Shaw, the Director of Human Resources for WCDA. "Having the opportunity to pay it forward to one of our homeowners is something I will never forget and I know that it meant it a lot to her as well. Truly such a special day."
Video of the WCDA 'Pay it Forward Home Makeover' can be seen below:
Editor's Note: Nick Perkins, the writer of this article, is also an independent contractor that works with The BARK Firm.