S pending years in the hospitality industry, I was used to being around joyful and excited people, so, it was shocking to see so much hatred and disdain when I came to the parking industry. Some of what we do doesn’t help; we sometimes give parking tickets, although not randomly, and being objectified by the negativity on television shows certainly doesn’t help either. So much of what our organizations do is positive: we create jobs, make our streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, assist with developing our communities, and sometimes provide crucial financial funding for our communities. Should handing out parking tickets outperform the good that we do? Do people know what we do? These were questions we asked each other at our leadership meetings. Upon reflection, we felt something was missing from our organization. We felt so ingrained in our community, but maybe we weren’t doing enough to tell our story. Our mission statement mentions community, but were we living up to it?

Very few people walk away from a pay station cheering when their payment has been processed or embrace a parking ticket when they park in front of a fire hydrant. We know we can’t totally break the stigma of parking, we’re very realistic. But what we could try was to negate some of the negativity by showcasing more of the good we do and targeting the right audience. Our leadership team looked at how we could uncover the good of what we do and expand on it.

Our organization has like-minded team members that enjoy volunteering, and that have interests that intersect with community-driven initiatives. Aside from replacing legacy equipment and software that leads to bad and frustrating experiences, we set out to create and build a relationship with our community. We started by being very visible and approachable.

Our leadership team makes it a habit to walk to our destinations instead of driving. Our city is walkable and beautiful, and we embrace it. The perception and the interactions we have with most people completley different when we meet them on the streets face to face. We’ve found genuine, candid pop-in conversations with visitors, residents, and merchants are much more valuable than emails and phone calls. It’s not unusual to see any member of our leadership team speaking with a merchant on the sidewalks of Main Street or helping a visitor navigate a parking meter.

At first, people would look at us funny: why is this parking person having good conversations with me? Why are they showing up at these meetings? Are they canvassing for parking tickets? It took us a while to form that bond and prove our genuine intentions for good conversations.

Now that the community knew us better, we were ready to create our community outreach program. It was time to start being visible at community events and give our time and energy to volunteering opportunities. This was the framework of our program.

When we started talking about our community outreach program in its conceptual stages, we saw some eyebrows raised and eyes rolling. Totally reasonable. Why is the Parking Authority diving into this pool? But our industry is filled with resilient people, and that’s what you need to get a new and different program off the ground and sustain it. We were very committed to showcasing the good of what we do. As we did with our authority’s sustainability program, we knew that our community outreach program had to be more than a few social media posts and random acts. It had to be well thought out, planned, and executed. We worked with a graphic design team to brand our program, got all our members some cool tee shirts, hired a social media manager, and partnered with an amazing local community relations consultant to work on our action plan.

We started small and chose several community partners and events that meant something to us as an organization, and that captured the stakeholders in the areas in that we wanted to be the most visible.

This year, our team has been fortunate to volunteer our time at:

• Victory House of the Lehigh Valley.
• ArtsQuest.
• Lehigh Valley Hispanic Center.
• Bethlehem Area School District.
• South Side Arts District.
• Northside and South Side Farmers Markets.

We also have a presence at community events, including:

• Bethlehem Halloween Parade.
• Historic Bethlehem Live Advent Calendar.

By committing to this initiative, were very successful in creating another advantageous layer for our organization. Our team members are very proud of the work they do for the community, and they’re even happier when they hear the positive stories being told about them versus the negative. We changed the narrative of the Parking Authority. Our community has embraced our program, and there are many more communities out there that will too.