Ideas For Your Infrastructure Week Event
March 7, 2023
What to do this Infrastructure Week? We’ve got ideas!
Dear Colleagues,
We hope you already have the date set on your calendar: May 15-19, 2023 marks the return of Infrastructure Week!
At United for Infrastructure, we’re thrilled to host this signature event. For more than a decade, a diverse coalition of hundreds of organizations have come together across the country to promote investment in our nation’s roads, rails, pipes, ports and more during this one week.
Over the last three years, organizations were forced to shift to virtual or minimal events, and are now asking: What should I do for Infrastructure Week 2023? Great question! We’ve got five ideas for you to consider:
1. Open up a facility for a day, bring in the public, the media and local elected officials to tour your water treatment plant, airport, construction project or whatever asset you want to show off. Open-press tours that take people “behind the scenes” in places most folks never get to see are a great way to spread the word about Infrastructure Week. Consider highlighting the trades workers and employees who work on the site or project. Bring in members of the community who will be or are benefiting from it. If your construction project is using federal dollars, you can invite U.S. Representatives or Senators to tour it as well.
(Left to Right) Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, Water Alliance CEO Mami Hara, United for Infrastructure’s Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, and Kansas City Water Director Wes Minder tour construction at KC Water’s new biosolids plant. Photo courtesy of US Water Alliance.
2. Videos and virtual tours are a great option for places that are too inaccessible or not safe for in-person tours. Videos and virtual tours can be produced in advance and shared on social media. Tag our Twitter (@United4Infra) or LinkedIn account so we can help amplify!
Workers inspect a lead service line for removal in Pittsburgh. Photo courtesy of Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority.
Tour of Siemens facility in Wendell, North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Siemens and United for Infrastructure.
3. Pitch your principal to the local press for an in-person interview or write an op-ed about recent infrastructure investments or upcoming projects that tie into the national movement around Infrastructure Week. For an added hook, if your community has received funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), explain how that historic investment is benefiting your specific community. Many Americans may not know how federal dollars are allocated locally, so bringing local projects to life is an important part of this year’s theme: #InfrastructureWorks.
4. Host a breakfast or lunch panel with varied stakeholder voices about infrastructure in your community, for example a convening of leaders in organized labor, business, local government and your infrastructure projects discussing how infrastructure investments are benefitting taxpayers and local residents.
(Left to Right) Commissioner Eileen Higgins, Miami Dade County Mayor Vince Williams, Union City GA (former NLC president), Patrick Decker, CEO of Xylem, and Mami Hara, CEO of US Water Alliance.
5. Host a job/career fair in partnership with your local workforce board, trades council, school district and/or community college highlighting local training and employment opportunities within the skilled trades that are available to your residents. Workforce development is a major theme of discussion of this year’s Infrastructure Week, and with our theme #InfrastructureWorks, we’ll be highlighting workforce events as much as possible too.
Did this inspire any ideas for you? Sign up now at http://unitedforinfrastructure.org/ and share the details of your plans so we can amplify your event via our calendar and on social media. The United for Infrastructure calendar will be THE central hub for infrastructure events nationwide and a great way to get more attention for your work.
Questions? Email Ross@acceleratoraction.org. We’re excited to see what you come up with for Infrastructure Week 2023!
Thank you for your continued hard work!
The United for Infrastructure Team