Isabelle and Max Kellezi's creative talents and knowledge of social media having a positive impact
A BROTHER AND SISTER TEAM HELPING LOCAL BUSINESSES -THANKS TO THEIR CREATIVITY AND KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k58F-Hq7t1U&feature=youtu.be---presentation to Town Board
On January 21, 2021, Ardsley HS students Isabelle and Max Kellezi launched a student-run volunteer website to assist local small businesses with their online presence and to engage the community and strengthen our bond in a socially distanced post-pandemic environment. In a Zoom meeting with the Village of Ardsley’s Board of Trustees members and the Ardsley Multicultural, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, they discussed their organization: Locally Stronger- a unique interactive strategy to utilize social media tools to help businesses. Isabelle and Max spoke to the Greenburgh Town Board on Wednesday evening.
They came up with a creative initiative trying to engage the community. This experience is the first of its kind in their village. They developed an Instagram campaign coined “Traveling Dragon,” posting clues about the host business where the dragon might be each day for people to discern and follow along. Once community members find the dragon, they can take selfies and post with the hashtags #ardsleyyearoftheox and #yearoftheox. As the dragon travels from business to business, they post information about the hosting business and traditional rituals of celebrating the Lunar New Year. They created a video to reach their 385 followers to describe the event and how to participate, which has already received 552 views by the second day of this week-long event. They secured twelve local businesses to host one of two dragons every day for seven days. Thirty-five students volunteered to offer assistance with designing the clues, so they have assigned three student volunteers to each business. They enlisted some of their Locally Stronger clients to host a dragon and then strategically reached out to Asian-owned businesses who would be personally celebrating the holiday. Locally Stronger has coordinated for the elementary school children to create two five-foot-long dragons out of decorated paper plates, deepening our values of full-community engagement.
Isabelle and Max will be involved with the Zuckerberg/Greenburgh post pandemic initiative-- working with other students to come up with creative ideas that can help struggling businesses. If you watch the presentation Isabelle and Max gave to the Town Board I'm sure you'll agree that both have very bright futures. They are already making a positive impact in our community!PAUL FEINER