by Karin Ellefson
Keys? Check. Phone? Check. Mask? Check. 6 feet? Check. Hands? Check. That’s the motto for the new LNK is Greater Than campaign.
This six-week initiative, put on by Archrival and the Lincoln Community Foundation, is touching (socially distantly) students and young adults, alike. By educating local residents around the potential implications of COVID-19 in the community and inspiring individuals and businesses to take the necessary precautions to stop the spread of the virus, the LNK Community Ambassadors kick-started the campaign on August 15.
Greater Than is a movement dedicated to keeping the Lincoln community safe and healthy. The mission is to educate and raise awareness around the importance of mask wearing, social distancing, and handwashing. By researching the virus and how to slow the spread, sharing graphics and statistics on social media and dispersing around Lincoln talk about the movement and reward mask-wearers, the Community Ambassadors have been on the move and gaining some traction for the movement.
One of the 70 Community Ambassadors, Bre TenHulzen, is a senior studying Advertising & Public Relations and wanted to get involved with this movement as soon as possible.
“I decided to be a part of this movement because so many college students I know aren’t taking the virus seriously,” TenHulzen said. “They know that they’ll recover if they get it, but aren’t thinking about the bigger picture - Lincoln as an entire community. I want to show them that it’s not just a college town, but a place where older and younger people work and live as well. I think our age group can make a big difference by taking small precautions to keep everyone else safe!”
Along with her, the team consists of 20 College of Journalism and Mass Communications (CoJMC) students, including five alumni from the college. Victoria Peterson, a CoJMC 2017 graduate, wanted to join the team to learn from the experts in the field at Archrival while making a difference.
“I was really excited to use my creative thinking and storytelling skills to help spread awareness about how we can combat Covid-19 in our community,” Peterson said.
Hard work and being cautious is definitely going to be needed as the semester continues on, that’s why the Greater Than movement was created to prove that Lincoln really is greater than COVID. Learn more about the movement here.
