Kirkland launches marketing program

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KIRKLAND - A little town has taken a big approach to marketing itself. The Kirkland Chamber of Commerce is having a DVD produced about the community, which had 1,100 people according to the 2000 census. The DVD will include segments on the village's events, history, schools and businesses. "It's something we can hand out to people and businesses considering moving to Kirkland," Chamber President Scott Drexler said. The chamber decided to have the DVD made after seeing one Bruce Wilkinson, owner of WilksVision in DeKalb, completed for Shepherd's Carriage Livery in Kirkland. Wilkinson has worked in video production for 20 years on videos on towns in Iowa, birthdays, weddings, corporate training sessions and club gatherings. "It was an impressive DVD," Drexler said about one made for Shepherd's. Last fall, the chamber hired Wilkinson to make a DVD on Kirkland. It's paying him $75 an hour for work on the DVD that likely will run about 15 minutes. Wilkinson will add music and voice-overs and include footage of the village's events, such as its fall festival and Fourth of July celebration. The chamber is asking local businesses if they want to be featured in a spot on the DVD, Drexler said. It also is getting community members to work on segments featuring the town's schools and history. The history segment will show old photographs and have information on the village's start as a train stop and sheep yard. The Veterans' Memorial, a stone engraved with names of northern Illinois veterans from the Civil War to the current Iraqi war, will appear in the film. "The town's very proud of the memorial," Drexler said. "It's beautiful." He expects the video to be complete by late fall. The DVD format will allow the chamber to add segments in later years and easily make more copies, Drexler said. The people of Kirkland are "very community-oriented," he said, and the DVD will be another source of pride. "Kirkland's a real neat little place," Wilkinson said. "Everyone knows each other and help each other out. It's a nice place to visit. This will be another way for them to promote their community." Renee Messacar can be reached at rmessacar@daily-chronicle.com.