Partake in Paducah
Chapter I: The Origin
Partake in Paducah began with one woman’s experience as a new resident of our river city. As a military wife, Kerri Bonner moved around the country in support of her husband, Nute. His work brought them to Paducah. Shortly after this move, Kerri created the @cityofpaducah social media accounts to document her discovery of her new city for her friends and family across the country. She then assigned the hashtag #PartakeinPaducah to posts made to those accounts as a way to organize and share her experiences with the community and online world.
The Paducah Community
Kerri’s social documentary of her experiences soon evolved into a city-wide movement with residents embracing the hashtag to document their love of Paducah with their own personal photos and stories of people, places, things, and happenings in the city.
In just two years time, over 10,000 people began following @cityofpaducah. #ParktakeinPaducah has been used over 35,000 times by city officials, visitors, locals and businesses: each post featuring a unique style and point of view.
+ Followers
+ #partakeinpaducah has been used
Chapter II: The Move
In December 2017, Kerri and Nute once again found themselves on the move – this time to Louisville. Jonas Neihoff, President of Socially Present, could not stand the thought of seeing the movement die. He describes the city he calls home as one that is in the early stages of a renaissance. There is much more history to be made and many more stories to tell. To continue the documentation of the rebirth of Paducah, Socially Present took ownership of the @cityofpaducah accounts founded by Kerri. The #PartakeinPaducah social media success has helped redefined Paducah to the rest of the world and Paducah’s new identity is just being discovered. The time is now for all of us to take ownership of our great city to really make it the best micropolitan that it can be. While the ownership of these social accounts has changed, the mission and vision established by Kerri and the thousands of followers she inspired remain the same.
