The City of Jacksonville Florida, has a burgeoning food scene. Foodies, food events and blogs are rapidly growing along with community conversations about new restaurants, chefs and food trucks.

The Jacksonville Public Library (JPL) saw an opportunity to be a part of the conversation. Building upon an existing relationship with a local public relations expert, library staff easily agreed to highlight its expansive and popular cookbook collection, based on a comment from a local popular restaurant owner who said that his line chefs use the library’s collection as a resource for recipe creation for the restaurant. Additionally, Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ) runs a well-known culinary program that supplies talented graduates to area restaurants and food enterprises. Subsequent discussions and meetings among JPL staff, FSC staff, and public relations professionals created an event titled “My Favorite Cookbook with Grayson Schmitz” (“Top Chef” contestant, season 9).

The majority of the influencers in the culinary community fall in the young professionals demographic that has been a difficult audience for the library to reach. The majority of the marketing for this event was targeted at this elusive population to show the library’s relevance in hopes of whetting their appetite for the library’s cooking resources.

The event took place in the library’s conference center, rented out by FSCJ for a private fundraising reception with Grayson. It featured nine of the best Jacksonville restaurant chefs presenting a tasting of a signature dish, along with culinary students presenting their dishes created with Grayson, who had worked with them in their kitchen that morning. The event proceeds, along with event sponsorships helped the culinary school to raise $25,000. Immediately after the reception, ticket holders were given preferred seating at a JPL event open to the general public, in which Grayson spoke about her cooking history, why “The Joy of Cooking” was her favorite cookbook, and her time as a contestant on the very popular Top Chef TV program. Following the program, Grayson appeared at a meet and greet to sign autographs and take photos, while copies of “The Joy of Cooking” were for sale. To work toward building the most effective marketing campaign for the event, FSC and JPL worked very closely to pool resources, including potential audience members and consistent branding. All sponsor and participating restaurant logos were included in all promotional material, both print and electronic. This cross promotion included promoting the VIP Reception, the free library program and our culinary materials to potential attendees. The library e-newsletter featured an interview with the chef who had first spoken about the library’s collection and his involvement with the FSCJ culinary program. A local Jacksonville independent bookseller sold books at the event and promoted it through her own channels. The program had extensive media coverage that included television, the local NPR station and a full page feature article in the The Florida Times-Union.

The event was a great all-around success. The culinary students were able to learn from a professional celebrity chef and work among the highly regarded chefs of Jacksonville. The Jacksonville Public Library reached an entirely new audience through the marketing and social media discussion of the event. A majority of the 175 attendees were members of the desired target group, many of whom expressed surprise at the library’s cooking resources. The tickets for the free program were offered through Eventbrite and were quickly claimed. Florida State College at Jacksonville was able to raise $25,000 for scholarships through sponsorships and ticket sales.

Evaluations of the program were extremely positive and work has begun on “My Favorite Cookbook 2014” with the College willing to commit three times the amount of money as the inaugural year. The potential donor bases for the college and the library have both grown as a result of this partnership.