New Website Empowers the Sharing of Dreams to Honor MLK’s Legacy
January 14, 2012
GREENVILLE, SC – January 13, 2012 – Just as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted the base of his movement to be as broad as possible, broad-based participation in the MLK holiday has been a goal that for a long time seemed just out of reach. Now a new website is allowing people across the country and around the globe to share in the civil rights leader’s dream by expressing their own.
“Keepupthedream.com” was created as part of MLK Dream Weekend, an annual celebration in Greenville, S.C., that has become one of the country’s largest local celebrations of Dr. King’s legacy. The site, developed by the Greenville office of leading ad agency Erwin Penland, allows people from all walks of life to simply answer the question, “What’s your dream?” Responses are posted immediately, allowing these expressions of hope to be shared as inspiration to others.
The site was introduced at the MLK Dream Weekend Diversity Banquet Friday night at Greenville’s TD Convention Center, where more than 1,000 guests were encouraged to access the site via QR code on their smartphones. Organizers hope to have hundreds of dreams posted on the site by the end of the MLK holiday on Monday, Jan. 16.
“Keepupthedream.com is a wonderful and interactive way for people from all walks of life to share their dreams to help make our community a better place,” said MLK Dream Weekend co-founder Nika White, who also serves as a management supervisor at Erwin Penland. “The goal of MLK Dream Weekend is to provide networking, accountability, coaching, encouragement, inspiration and support through the dreamer’s community, and this website is an effective tool to carry on the mission of Dr. King, who insisted, ‘You don’t have to make your subjects and verbs agree to serve, you only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.’”
Erwin Penland’s role in creating the site is an extension of the 400-person agency’s ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion. Agency co-founder and President Joe Erwin serves on the board of the 4A’s Foundation, the charitable of the industry’s top trade association that grants scholarships to multicultural students with a goal of increasing diversity among the country’s advertising agencies.
Erwin also recently showcased the firm’s best practices in diversity and inclusion at an “Advertising Week” panel in Washington, D.C., highlighting efforts to strive for economic inclusion through supplier diversity while planting seeds to ensure the marketing and advertising workforce of tomorrow is reflective of an increasingly diverse population.
Those efforts resulted in numerous awards for the 25-year-old firm. In 2011, Erwin Penland earned a Diversity Leadership Award from the Richard W. Riley Institute at Furman University, and the Excellence in the Workplace Diversity Award from the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and the South Carolina Diversity Council.
The agency was has also been recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work” by Advertising Age, by PR News as one of the “Best Places to work in Public Relations,” and by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce as one of the “Best Places to Work in South Carolina.”
MLK Dream Weekend runs from Friday, Jan. 13, through Monday, Jan. 16. For more information on this year’s event, please visit www.mlkdreamweekend.com.
About Erwin Penland
Erwin Penland creates interactions that inspire action. One of the largest full-service advertising agencies based in the South, with offices in Greenville, S.C., and New York, the firm offers integrated advertising, strategic planning, media, digital, experiential, direct marketing, design and public relations services to a wide range of clients including Verizon, Denny’s, Lockheed Martin, BI-LO Supermarkets, Cross Pens and Advance America. Renowned for its commitment to growth, integrity and customer service, Erwin Penland has received numerous awards for marketing effectiveness and creative excellence, and in 2011 was named one of the “Best Places to Work” by Advertising Age.
