The most important thing when you're picking up a pizza is to get it home in the same condition it left the store. Potholes are the enemy of a smooth drive, and thus the nemesis of good pizza. Domino's Pizza is working to fix that pothole problem for some lucky cities across the country with its Paving for Pizza program.
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The pizza chain is offering customers the opportunity to nominate their city for awards that go to fixing potholes, saving good pizza from bad roads by creating a smoother ride home.
Domino's Pizza
"Have you ever hit a pothole and instantly cringed? We know that feeling is heightened when you're bringing home a carryout order from your local Domino's store. We don't want to lose any great-tasting pizza to a pothole, ruining a wonderful meal," said Russell Weiner, president of Domino's USA, in a press release announcing the effort to help local infrastructure projects. "Domino's cares too much about its customers and pizza to let that happen."
You can nominate your home town for pothole repair. To nominate the city or town you live in, all you need to do is go to pavingforpizza.com, enter your zip code, select the appropriate Domino's location, and then provide your email. The company will review the entries looking for clusters of zip codes. Once they identify a cluster, Domino's will contact the city to see if they're interested in participating in the promotion.
There are 17 paving grants of $5,000 each available for use in road repairs. The nomination period ends on September 16, 2018, or when all the funds have been given out. Cities that agree to receive the money must use it to repair potholes.
On their website, you can see what bad road conditions do to a pizza. You can also see what kind of positive effect the campaign is having in the four cities Domino's has already partnered with. The company has helped repair roads that directly affect their customers in four cities: Bartonville, Texas; Milford, Delaware; Athens, Georgia; and Burbank, California.
Domino's Pizza
In Bartonville, the paving grant covered 75 tons of asphalt, which fixed eight potholes on three roads. In Milford, City Manager Eric Norenberg said that the grant made it possible to repair 10 roads and covered the time for four crew members.
"We appreciated the extra Paving for Pizza funds to stretch our street repair budget as we addressed more potholes than usual.," Norenberg said, noting the harsher than expected winter.
Sure, the pothole gets stamped with the pizza company's logo, but this marketing campaign is also an innovative public-private partnership that helps towns stretch their street repair budgets to cover something that everyone cares about.
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