A plan to decorate the streets of Buckhead with statues of bucks isn’t catching on like its planners had hoped.
The buck statues will be visible in 2012, according to Donna Kain and Elizabeth Gill, the two co-chairs of the Bucks on the Street project. There just may not be as many as originally intended because of the sluggish economy, they said.
The original goal was to sell 75 sponsorships of the buck statues. So far, the Bucks on the Street campaign has sold 10, Kain said. Even as the statues go up, the organization will continue to sell sponsorships, Kain said.
In September, the group held a “Buck Naked” party to show off the product and help increase sales.
Kain said she wanted to start putting the bucks in front of local businesses sooner. The drive began in late 2010. Gill said the intent was to use the statues to lift the spirits of the community after the 2008 economic crash put a stop to development and created a large amount vacant office space.
The slow recovery isn’t being kind to Kain’s and Gill’s efforts.
“It’s taken us longer to sell these things,” Kain said. “It’s the economy, and the fact this is all volunteers doing it.”
The statue program is similar to ones sponsored in other communities. Sandy Springs, for instance, produced turtle statues in 2005. Many still decorate city streets. Other communities have sponsored decorated statues of cows or bulldogs or other animals.
Businesses can sponsor a buck for $4,000, $10,000 or $20,000, depending on its size. The bucks will be placed in front of sponsors’ businesses for six months. Afterward, sponsors will have the opportunity to buy their buck at auction. Kain said the sponsorship levels were changed after the program started, because the original four levels of sponsorship were too hard to explain to interested donors.
Proceeds benefit the nonprofit Livable Buckhead group, which promotes quality of life issues in Buckhead, such as offering more transportation options and creating new parks.
Gill said selling 75 of the statues was ambitious.
“I don’t want that to sound like we were unsuccessful,” she said. “It was a huge goal, and the goal was to sell all the way through the auction process. I think the economy has definitely hurt us.”
Gill said other people have said they would sponsor a buck but haven’t paid for it yet.
“If we were to give you the list of people who said ‘yes,’ it would be more like 25,” she said.
The statues are a cast of the original Buckhead Boy design created by MAD Magazine artist Jack Davis. Davis designed the character for the Buckhead Boys, a group of men who attended North Fulton High School (which is now replaced by the Atlanta International School), Gill said. Davis was one of the original members.
The bucks will be decorated by professional artists, Kain said. The Buck for the Mercedes Benz, for example, is painted in a silver-chrome color and holding a Mercedes symbol.
“They’re very creative,” Kain said. “We’ve got a couple of sample ones that we’ve been using as we’ve been talking to businesses, some in the colors of Georgia Tech or the University of Georgia. Really, the business will be able to kind of select what they want.”
Gill said the statues are an exciting opportunity for local businesses to show community spirit while raising money for a worthy local cause.
“It’s really a fun symbol for the community,” Gill said. “Other communities have done things similar, but we think this is much cooler because it’s a buck in Buckhead. Not to diminish anything other communities have done, but this makes perfect sense. It’s a piece of art that they can have for their business.”
Anyone interested in additional information about Bucks on the Street can visit http://www.bucksonthestreet.org/.
