The Friendly Floridian™

This project is the brainchild of Leann Barber and Elaine Lindsay. We came together 5 years ago and created the educational non-profit Made in Broward in order to provide a safe learning environment, work experience, and income opportunities for our 4-H club members. Although we shared a common experience of living in London, we lived different lives, Leann as a corporate IT manager and financial advisor, Elaine as a lab technician and mother of four. Together we have built Made in Broward as a positive brand representing quality, natural, and locally made products for everyday use.

We are committed to changing the dynamic of our  community from a hostile environment to a friendly one, or at least identifying where a warm welcome can be expected. We have created a designation of The Friendly Floridian™ which will be awarded to an individual that commits to being a friendly beacon to visitors and residents alike, regardless of their gender, age, race, religion, or sexual orientation. We believe it will lead people to be more aware of how they act around others and how they use hostility to control people or drive them away. Since Floridians and visitors should be able to live and enjoy the beauty of Florida, we believe by creating this awareness, fellow Floridians will begin to change their behavior. We will encourage people to do business with The Friendly Floridian™ so that good behavior is rewarded.  

We are working to solve the uncertainty around what reaction an individual expects to receive when interacting with a stranger or acquaintance. Examples include interactions in retail locations, on the street, in parks, or at schools, which should be friendly environments but are often quite hostile. We are all living in a crowded community so we need to think about how we are interacting. We want people to commit to being friendly to each other to make the existence a little more pleasant. Everyone is affected by the level of hostility in the community and everyone would benefit by a reduction, but it is especially important in cross racial interactions. For example, black people often do not know what to expect from white people and vice versa which leads to both being guarded and hostile. When you know that someone is friendly and you are friendly too, your guard can come down and you can see the other person for what they are. Having the Friendly Floridian as a designation and something to strive for would put friendliness on the minds of more people.   

We have created a designation of The Friendly Floridian (TFF), set up a facebook group and started to define the criteria, training, and award system. The idea is to be fun and make The Friendly Floridian a highly desirable distinction! It’s like a club or association and membership is granted by people that pass the test, qualifying through a scorecard and through interviews with a panel of Friendly Floridians. We want to change social norms by encouraging people that want the designation to bone up on the history and demographics of Florida and reflect on how friendly they really are, especially with people different from themselves. We will provide the TFF pocket guide, the TFF handbook, and TFF branded merchandise to members, and it will be a fun way to become more aware of what it means to be friendly, who else is friendly, and what is the best of Florida. 

As it grows, we will want to set up a member database, and publish a blog, online magazine and directory of members. We will offer members the ability to publicize that their establishment has staff that have been certified as The Friendly Floridian™.

Elaine and I have been committed to being The Friendly Floridian for over 5 years now, and our project has significantly impacted the lives of our 15 club members because we have been the friendly face that our youth can rely on for honest answers and to try new ideas and experiment without judgement. They are accepted by us and they know we want the best for them. Now we are formalizing and extending this idea to a wider group of individuals so that more people can be involved and benefit from the knowledge of who is like-minded. We want them to avoid the devastating consequences of dealing with unfriendly people in what is thought to be a friendly environment. Think about the treatment Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson received at Starbucks in Philadelphia or Rayshard Brooks treatment at Wendy's, that ended in his tragic death. 

Our project will formally create a "hostility free zone" in our 4-H club and we will promote the idea to other clubs in the county. We will continue to help our youth navigate the choppy waters that is Florida and add Friendly Floridians as we go. 

We have already witnessed that by valuing friendliness, ourselves and our youth members are more aware of how we interact with others. We've learned to spot friendliness or the lack thereof in people we interact with on a daily basis. We generate more consideration of our neighbors and we plan to create friendliness indexes for our city governments, police, schools, hospitals, and other service providers. What we will find is that most of these places are very unfriendly at the moment, but perhaps when they are measured on their friendliness, they will start to be friendlier. Friendliness isn't be conditional. 

After running Made in Broward and our 4-H club for 5 years, and watching our youth all graduate from high school and get into great colleges, we came to believe that making youth more competitive was not the right strategy for us, as this is a zero sum game. We aren't helping all youth in our community when we only focus on a few; really all need a helping hand and a friendly face. The major problem faced by people, particularly young people, is that they don’t know who is friendly and who isn’t. People waste a lot of time and energy being hurt by hostile people, or becoming defensive or aggressive so they don’t get hurt. We wondered what would happen if friendly people identified themselves so that other friendly people could find them? Would more people become friendly? Would being friendly lead to better results with less negative energy? We think this needs to be done on a local level, so we decided the state would be the best place to try it, so we called it The Friendly Floridian™, established a Facebook Group and started nominating friends to become The Friendly Floridian™.       

We are passionate because we believe this project will change our community. We don't think putting more money into schools helps, for example, if the school is still a war zone, which many kids and teachers believe it is. One of our members said "my high school was not built for me". It is terrible to feel that way. If people that live in another geography want to hate and kill each other, that is their problem, but here in Florida, we want to be friendly. After all, tourism is one of our biggest industries. While we are friendly to visitors, wouldn’t it be a good idea to be friendly to each other as well? Elaine and I are both transplants who have lived in Florida for over 10 years. We love Florida and want others to love it too. We want others to know the history of Florida good and bad so that we understand why things are the way they are. We can't change the past but we can commit to treating each other in a friendly manner, since we have all ended up here, some by chance and some by choice. Let's make the best of it!   

We feel we are uniquely positioned to solve this problem because we are looking at the problem differently than everyone else. We have been practicing our ideals for several years and we are committed to creating and maintaining friendly relations across racial, gender, class, and any other boundaries. We see the individual and rejoice in their gifts. We are pretty well connected in the business world and have developed a client following through our Made in Broward products which we can tap into. We have experience in running a business and being part of large corporations. We think we have the skills and connections and drive to make this happen! 

We have formalized this concept during the COVID shutdown. We were forced to stop our daily operations and move to a virtual existence. We have been unable to work normally or sell our products to the public since our market has been closed since mid March. We could have closed up and said forget it, but instead, we have spent the time reflecting on the essence of what we are doing and why, which has led us to formalize how we treat each other, in contrast to how we see other people in the country are treating each other. We know that it will take many years for this designation to be widely accepted and there will be pitfalls along the way, but we feel confident that we can adapt and change, as we have done for the past 5 years in developing our Made in Broward products and leading the 4-H Club. When we talk to individuals, most are on board and eager to be designated The Friendly Floridian and help change our social norms.

We started the first 4-H Club in Fort Lauderdale and invited youth from all backgrounds to join. We have the most diverse club in the county and our members took top honors in many events at the County Fair. We built Made in Broward into a company that produces over 50 unique products. We encourage gift giving because it is a great way to express friendliness to others. This is a picture of 50 gifts we produced for one of our clients who is working hard to be a Friendly Floridian. We know how to build teams and inspire people to achieve more than they thought possible. We know how to reach the hearts of others and show them the value of being friendly. See our website www.madeinbroward.com for more pictures.

Our long-term outcome is a community where individuals treat each other without hostility, where individuals can freely move throughout the state (our project bounds) without fear of being embarrassed, harassed, humiliated, or worse, such as in the cases of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, where "stand your ground" attitudes resulted in the deaths of two innocent young black men. 

Shorter term, we can identify individuals that will commit to being friendly to all others that have committed to being friendly. 

We don't have stats on this yet, but The Green Book, Gay Friendly Rainbow Flags, and Pet Friendly indicators have successfully provided navigation aids for a hostile environment. 

"There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year.  -From the introduction to the 1949 edition of The Green Book" 

Sadly, the Green Book was published until 1965 and although it may no longer be needed to require admission to lunch counters and hotel rooms, hostility has not disappeared. 

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Today, we touch 50 people in a meaningful way, our intention is to increase that to about 300 within a year, and up to 20,000 in five years. We will have identified 20,000 Friendly Floridians at that time, which should create a high level of navigation aid for our youth. 

50, 300, 20,000

We are going to continue to work on the ground, making our products, building relationships, and building a network of Friendly Floridians. 

Our biggest barrier is financial, as we believe we could hire social media and website designers to promote the message. There are no technical, legal or market barriers to our mission. Cultural barriers exist but can be overcome with promotion.

We will continue to fund the project internally and will seek financial support from other individuals. We need expertise in software development and social media marketing to make the project a success.

We sponsor a 4-H club and assist with members from other clubs. We are committed to 4-H as a great tool to improve community.. This link explains how a cohesive community is key to helping youth succeed. study on mobility

We think that becoming The Friendly Floridian will be beneficial to business owners, so we think that we can charge for the endorsement and for merchandise.

We plan to be sustainable through selling merchandise, membership fees, designations, donations, and grants. Like a chamber of commerce emblems, we think there is great value in becoming a Friendly Floridian and that business owners will be willing to pay a small fee for the designation or to be in a business directory of friendly businesses. Our costs will be relatively low since most of the work will be done by volunteers that support the idea and want others to meet the criteria before being certified. 

We have raised revenue for the base Made in Broward non-profit, but not this specific project yet.

We would like $100,000 to be used over a 5 year period to hire graphic design, web developer, blogger, and social media consultant to help launch this product. We will also need funding to design, make and promote our merchandise. We understand that if we win the prize, we will revise our project plan to create a wider impact faster through more promotion, paid staff, and a more robust platform, which would be awesome!  

We plan to spend about $5,000 for the remainder of 2020 in website development and content including our handbook and scorecard. We also plan to refine our logos and develop some merchandise. 

with the help of the Elevate Prize, we could launch the Friendly Floridian designation in a big way. We could have media, contests, etc. that would bring awareness and change the dialogue in Florida. It would be totally awesome to have your backing. 

With your support, you could connect us to high profile individuals that would be willing to become The Friendly Floridian. Imagine if we had several famous Floridians that wanted to be designated as Friendly. Then we could address all of the areas where hostility reigns and put in place changed attitudes. We haven't worked out all of the details, but we think it is a model that will work. With your help, we could go bigger faster.

Florida 4-H, we will continue to partner, and encourage them to adopt the notiion of being friendly.

We will want media partners that could designate and elevate a statewide campaign. we would like to designate posthumous awards to Floridians that were exemplary in their friendliness to all, and create a Hall of Fame. 

We could partner with major Florida corporations such as FP&L or Publix that would want to sponsor the award.