Summit Lake Postcard Project

When I first moved to Akron in 2015, my friend gave me a tour of Akron and we stopped by Summit Lake. I immediately fell in love. I remember I told him I wanted to live there one day and he seemed surprised.

As time went on I understood why he reacted that way. I started hearing the stories people shared about Summit Lake. Quite often I would be told that Summit Lake is dangerous and it would be left at that. Sometimes I would hear stories of crime and more than once was told that an alligator used to live in the lake. Some stories were more believable than others.

I knew that the lake suffered from a pollution problem at one point. Summit Lake provided water to the rubber factories.The Summit Metro Parks building, on the south side of the lake, used to be called the “Pump House.” It would pump water from the lake to the rubber factories and then pump their polluted water into the lake.

Even though time had changed for Summit lake, it couldn’t get over its bad reputation. The pump house stopped operation and with the help of people and organizations that cared about the lake, an environmental study showed the lake was much safer than it had been in decades. You don’t really need a report to tell you that because you can see it. There are lots of birds flying around the lake, having a little swim, or catching a bite to eat. Wildflowers and other plant life are growing along the shore. On any given day you see people fishing from the docks, kayaking, or having picnics nearby the water.

Even with all of that, the perception that Summit Lake is filthy and unsafe has persisted. How do you change that perception? That’s a question that was always front of mind for all of us working on the Akron Civic Commons project.

One day I was talking with Kyle Kutuchief with Knight Foundation, telling him about a recent bird watching trip I went on. I mentioned how so many photographers were there taking pictures and Kyle said, “How do we get photographers to come take pictures of birds at Summit Lake?” After a lot of back and forth with ideas, the Summit Lake Postcard Project was born.

We worked with two local photographers, Rob Blair and Thalia Hodge, to capture nature photos around Summit Lake. I worked with OADC, in Cuyahoga Falls, to create the a design template for the postcard. We even used a local printer and mailhouse.

Each month we would drop a different photo from one of our photographers into the template and on the back we list three events or activities going on around the lake. 15,000 postcards were then printed and taken to the mailhouse where they are sent out to addresses close around the lake.

We took that approach to mailing for two reasons. If we could entice the people who live closest to the lake to go to the events and activities on the postcards and think it’s beautiful, they are more likely to become regular visitors to the lake. The more people there are regularly the lake, the more perception changes. Also, if the people who live closest to the lake start saying it’s beautiful and there are fun things to do, they have become ambassadors for the lake, again helping to change the perception of the lake.

Plus, it’s just fun to get something so colorful and pretty in the mail each month. Can’t be mad at that!