The city of Perry had two very special guests during the month of December. Visiting different city government departments every day, the two guests were intended to help educate the public on aspects of the governing body and various events or information that the citizens might not be aware of. Who are the guests, you ask? Why, it’s none other than Aggie and Sammy.
Noticing how posting anything about community development received minimal interaction on social media, Tabitha Clark, the communications manager for Perry, wanted to shake things up and make things more interesting. Taking a page from other municipalities across the nation, she came up with the idea of presenting Aggie and Sammy, two elves from the popular “Elf on a Shelf” tradition, to the citizens as an educational tool.
“Local government isn’t exactly the most exciting topic when you talk to people about things,” Anya Turpin, special events manager for Perry, said chuckling.
At the start of the idea, Clark and Turpin wanted to immediately involve the community. They created a post showcasing the two elves and gathered different options for naming them. The community pitched many suggestions, but the names “Aggie” and “Sammy” won the final jury. The names were far from random and held special meaning to the city. Aggie was named in recognition of the huge agricultural component to Perry from the Agricenter of the fairgrounds to the importance of “Georgia Grown.” Sammy was named to honor Sam Nunn, former Georgia Senator.
Wanting to make sure that there was diverse representation, Clark and Turpin went to Gottwals Books in Perry to purchase two elves with different skin pigmentations. “The goal was for everyone who sees them to hopefully relate to one of them,” Turpin explained. “We tried to make it a fun thing so people could see what adventures they’re going on each day and hopefully, people could learn something along the way.”
Aiming to find a way to highlight some departments that aren’t always at the forefront of people’s minds, or convey information the city government wanted the public to become more familiar with, Turpin described the desire to make a creative and fun way to educate the citizens. “Working for local government, there’s a lot of things that naturally make sense to us because we deal with it everyday– or matters to us because we deal with it everyday– that maybe the public may just not care about or care to know about,” Turpin added.
What started as a fun, little post turned into a daily adventure for Aggie and Sammy. They explored places like the fire and police departments to learn about public safety and charitable events, the customer service department to learn how to make online payments, the public works department, and many more. They even visited the custodial department to highlight how the staff has been the backbone of the city government by providing clean and sanitary facilities for the rest of the employees.
“It was exciting to not only see the community get engaged, but also be able to talk to these departments and ask if they wanted to be on our social media. They were always excited because they never got to do that before,” expressed Turpin. Many of the departments showed great enthusiasm for the idea and it was a great way to spread a little holiday cheer throughout the community.
Unfortunately, Aggie and Sammy had to return to the North Pole with the passing of Christmas. Mayor Walker presented them with an honorary key to the city for being such a light and help during the holiday season. Turpin noted that the response from the community was so positive that she sees a return visit from the elves next year.
“Hopefully COVID will be gone, and we can host some kind of event where people can come and meet the elves,” Turpin hinted.
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