Some northwest suburbs are learning to use marketing to accomplish civic missions.
Morton Grove’s Fire Department is marking its 100th anniversary this year and has set as its goal having a functioning smoke detector in every home in town.
“We’re at about 85 percent of our goal,” Chief Tom Friel said. “We’re hoping by the end of this year to get to 100 percent.”
The Fire Department is offering to furnish and install a free, battery-operated smoke detector for any resident who calls 847-470-5226.
In Elk Grove Village, the coming 50th anniversary means a crack at a $50 home.
The village is planning to raffle off a new house to help pay for a yearlong string of festivities in 2006, from a rock concert to a professional bike race. Officials hope to sell enough $50 tickets to raise $1 million, with half paying for anniversary events, half going to charity.
“Who wouldn’t take a chance for $50?” said Mayor Craig Johnson.
He said the house would be worth as much as $400,000 and would be built on a village-owned lot at Cheltenham Road and Gateshead Lane, near the Pavilion recreation center.
Centex Corp. of Dallas has agreed to build the house and donate it to the village. The company built Elk Grove Village as a planned community in the 1950s, putting up about 7,500 houses and an industrial park that is the largest of its kind in the United States.
“We built the first house, and we’d like to build the last,” said Centex spokeswoman Sheila Gallagher.
Tickets won’t go on sale until the end of next summer, and the drawing will be held in July 2006.
