{"id":271288,"date":"2018-03-06T06:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T20:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=271288"},"modified":"2018-03-06T06:00:43","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T20:00:43","slug":"signboard-seeks-inspire-chuckles-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/signboard-seeks-inspire-chuckles-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Signboard seeks to inspire chuckles as you pass by"},"content":{"rendered":"

The messages posted on the Marianas Eye Institute signboard every month is always a source of laughter, joy, and encouragement, no matter what the signs of the times are.<\/p>\n

The institute\u2019s CEO, Russ Quinn, said that putting up humorous messages on their signboard started three years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the early days, we used to throw a lot of our marketing materials on the signboard, but I don\u2019t think anybody ever looked at it because it was all advertising. Then three years ago, I saw a sign that cracked me up so I put it up\u2014\u2018The boss told me to change the sign so I did,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That was the start of something unexpected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got many reviews from that and people were asking if that was really our worker that put that up and I was like, yes and I used it a couple of back and forth because it\u2019s really funny. People told me about it and I thought that\u2019s cool to know that people like to look and read at our sign,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Being intentional about the messages they put up on the signboard began after Soudelor.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u201cI get people that call me and tell me \u2018Oh I got ideas!\u2019 The one sign that\u2019s currently up there was contributed by a 13-year-old girl that sent me a message and I said, this one is funny and that\u2019s going to go to next month\u2019s sign.\u201d said Russ Quinn CEO of Marianas Eye Institute. (Bea Cabrera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAfter Soudelor happened, the island needed an upper as there was damage and destruction everywhere. Our sign was completely torn apart except for the center section where I can put a message up. That was the only thing that remained and I thought I put up a sign that said, \u2018Stay strong Saipan we can get through this together,\u2019\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen we started getting feedback from the community and they were thankful for such a great encouraging thing. From then on, we changed it a couple of times where we would say \u2018Let\u2019s show the world what a great community Saipan is\u2019 and things like that,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

The more the community responded to their signs, the more MEI became engaged and asked people for suggestions. <\/p>\n

\u201cI put up Helen Keller sayings and everyone was just giving me good feedback on that\u2026For Christmas and New Year, we put up a holiday greeting or add a message to whatever is going on. If there is a sporting event on island, we put up \u2018Good luck, Tagaman,\u2019\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI get people that call me and tell me \u2018Oh I got ideas!\u2019 The one sign that\u2019s currently up there was contributed by a 13-year-old girl that sent me a message and I said, this one is funny and that\u2019s going to go to next month\u2019s sign,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Quinn said that MEI is serious with its work as an eye-care center but humor finds its way into their everyday operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have two doctors, Dr. Williams, an ophthalmologist and he does the surgery on the eyes and does the treatment for cataracts and diabetic retinopathy and those kinds of services. We have Dr. Robertson who is an optometrist who does treatment of disease for diabetic retinopathy but he also does and provides prescription glasses and a lot of other medical referral services to our ophthalmologist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have a very fun crew here so we kind of portray that in the community as well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The interview inspired Quinn to come up with a promo that will give back some benefit to the community for their continued patronage of MEI and support their signs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to offer a contest to the community. Say for anybody that can submit a sign to me and through our website (www.marianaseye.com) a funny or inspiring quote and we use their message for the month, I\u2019ll give them a 50-percent discount on a pair of sunglasses. If we use your sign, we will happily give them a great discount on a pair of sunglasses in the shop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is just giving me good feedback on the signs\u2026 it just became this thing where people were like \u2018when are you going to change your sign?\u2019 \u2018We have a suggestion for your sign,\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Expect more messages in the future as the MEI signboard has become more than just letters and words.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a mother tell me that her daughter is homesick for Saipan while in college in the states. Her daughter asked her to take a photo of the MEI sign because that always makes her feel good. That to me was like \u2018wow\u2019 and it turned out to be something I\u2019ve never expected it to be. People now look forward to what the next sign is going to say,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The messages posted on the Marianas Eye Institute signboard every month is always a source…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":271289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20326,3054,15616,67],"class_list":["post-271288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-helen-keller","tag-marianas-eye-institute","tag-mei","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}