By Staff
Golden LEAF offers$40,000 to promote tourism
By GREG KATSKI
Staff Writer
On Tuesday, the Golden LEAF awarded the Aurora Fossil Museum $40,000 in grant funding to promote regional and local tourism for the museum.
The grant will be used to promote the museum’s theme, “I dig Aurora” and mascot, “Digger.”
The grant will help establish the museum as a hub for earth science education, according to Bonner.
“We just want to do some advertising for it and try to help build our museum into a regional center for earth science education and a tourism spot,” Bonner said. “And we hope to do that through advertising on a regional basis and locally, also.”
The campaign will focus on placing advertisements in regional magazines and creating an interactive Web page for the mascot.
The museum is also considering advertising on roadside billboards.
Merchandise, such as T-shirts and apparel, featuring “Digger” and “I dig Aurora” are also manufactured and available at the museum’s gift shop.
The campaign will get under way after museum representatives meet with Golden LEAF officials to go over specifics of the promotion.
“Right now, as soon as we can start, we will, but we have to have a meeting with them to begin the campaign and let them kind of know what our plans are,” Bonner said.
Golden LEAF, established in 1999 as a nonprofit organization to help North Carolina’s economy, imposes specific policies on grants.
The museum first applied for a grant from Golden LEAF, which receives half of North Carolina’s funds from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with cigarette manufacturers, in late 2006.
After the museum was denied an initial grant, it reapplied for a grant in 2007.
With time to organize the advertising campaign and a grant now in place, Bonner thinks the promotion will be a success.
According to Bonner, the target of the campaign is clear.