From a small hashtag to a full campaign with events and activities that help the community, Julie Door’s “Love my Puyallup” campaign has brought the people of Puyallup closer together and gives a definition of what it means to be a part of the Puyallup community.
“It had started just as #MyPuyallup and that was because Puyallup is different to everybody, it means we all love it, but we love it for different reasons, and I like the idea of people being able to highlight what made it special to them,” Door said.
One of the key inspirations for Door’s campaign was a League of Cities Conference that she went to, an event that they had for the people attending was a “Love my city” challenge. Wanting to merge both the #MyPuyallup and the “Love my city” idea, she turned to former photography teacher, John Anderle.
“I was trying to figure out how to merge the two, so, I met with Mr. Anderle, we’ve been friends for decades; we went to school together and I asked him what his thoughts were and how we could merge those two,” Door said. “He came up with the ‘Love my Puyallup,’ putting them together and he came up with our logo and we launched it.”
But the collaboration with Anderle didn’t just end with him designing the logo. Door and Anderle worked together, getting the students in the Photo Club to help take pictures around town and show what Puyallup meant to them. Door was able to get the students into the fair and city hall to take pictures. These photos were put together in a photo exhibit, displayed in the courtyard.
“It was a really cool event and I loved getting to see what the high school students chose and I actually have a lot of those pictures from when I was the mayor, I’ve printed them and had them all in my office, because it was just a cool perspective,” Door said.
Door also worked in the past with the DECA club to promote the campaign by making merchandise. As well as members of the journalism program had interviewed people off the street creating a video about why people loved Puyallup, which is still on the Facebook page today.
“It’s been great, I love that we can partner with the high school students because we are building a future for them,” Door said. “This is their community as much as it is anybody else’s, and so the collaborations have been a lot of fun.”
Another activity that has been done with the Love my Puyallup campaign was supporting healthcare workers during covid. During that time, Door raised money for healthcare workers, gave them Starbucks gift cards, as well as getting the nearby school districts to make personalized cards for hospital employees.
“It was a effort of trying to keep up our health care workers morale during a really difficult time and I went to the schools and the principals all engaged in, had their kids participate,” Door said. “In a time that was really difficult for all of us, we were able to find a way to do something positive, the kids felt great about participating and the healthcare workers felt appreciated.”
Door’s passion for the community comes from the fact that she was born and raised here. She has just always loved the community. Door’s friends, family and children have all lived here, and made Puyallup a great place to live for her.
“[Puyallup is] very unique and special and I think sometimes people lose sight of that because we see it every day,” Door said. “You just have to go outside the city limits and see you can see a difference; you can see a difference in how we care for each other and what our pride is.”
Door says that these days it is easy to focus on the negatives and things that bother us, but the goal of Love my Puyallup is to focus on the positives and the bright side of things.
“I believe that what we focus on is what we create,” Door said. “If we focus on a negative environment, we perpetuate that. If we want a vibrant community that’s caring and a fun place to be, then we need to be focusing on that and that is the intent of Love my Puyallup. Focus on the things that make us unique make us special, make us a community.”
Door saw the struggles the community was going through and looked past the negatives to uplift the positives.
“They were focusing on the negative because that’s what we just kept hearing. That’s what makes headlines. That’s what makes the news and so my intention was to lift the positive and then lift the community spirit with it,” Door said.
Door believes that strong community is what makes the people in Puyallup unique. The ability to see neighbors caring for neighbors, working together in difficult times and celebrating the success and good times is what makes us something truly special to our area.
“If you don’t have a community, I really don’t know what you have. I just I can walk down the street and say hello to whoever it is and there’s a smile, it’s a warm place to be,” Door said. “Every community has challenges, but how we respond to them, that’s what defines us, and that’s why I believe we need a strong community and I think that we have one here.”
For the students at PHS, Door says that the campaign is for them. This campaign is about building the community they want to see and grow up in. Door wants to show that their voice matters.
“This is their community and if they are interested in participating in anything or they have an idea that I haven’t come up with for this campaign, I’d love to hear their ideas,” Door said. “I’ve been so impressed with the students at PHS, the creativity and the concepts that they have brought to me have been amazing.”
