At Adopt A Highway Maintenance Corporation® (AHMC) we’re often asked, what’s the difference between sponsoring a highway and adopting a highway? Since this is a common question, it is essential to understand the similarities and differences between the Adopt A Highway® and Sponsor A Highway® Programs.
What is Adopt A Highway?
Adopt A Highway® is often associated with a volunteer program that assists with various highway-related beautification efforts. Adopters can be individuals, groups, or companies. More importantly, Adopt A Highway® can either be a volunteer effort through a state or a paid sponsorship through AHMC. In either case, participation helps offset the costs associated with litter removal, promote highway beautification, and encourage civic responsibility. There are a few different forms of adoption, for example, litter removal, wildflower planting, and vegetation control, to name a few.
How does the Adopt A Highway® Program Work?
The Adopt a Highway® volunteer program is free of charge because adopters do all their own maintenance work! For this reason, adopters are issued safety equipment and are required to attend safety training courses held by the state’s Department of Transportation (DOT). Some DOT’s have requirements for frequency of litter removal by adopters, for example, Caltrans requires adopters to clean their highway segment at least twice a month. This commitment can seem daunting for most businesses that have to manage employee participation on company time. For this reason, DOT’s implemented corporate sponsorship opportunities through companies like AHMC. Our fee-based program means we do the litter removal work on behalf of our sponsors!
What is Sponsor A Highway?
The Sponsor A Highway® Program is a corporate sponsorship program that gives businesses, and individuals the opportunity to help keep our nation’s highways safe and clean. For a monthly fee, sponsors can choose to support roadside maintenance and beautification efforts on major highways throughout the United States. All participants receive a full-color recognition panel with their company name and logo for each segment of the highway that they choose to sponsor. By participating in the Sponsor A Highway Program® businesses can increase their brand awareness and Corporate Social Responsibility efforts.
How does the Sponsor A Highway® Program Work?
At AHMC, we use local, professionally trained, staff to remove litter from sponsored segments of the highway. This decreases the liability and time commitment required by our sponsors and ensures we have only trained personnel maintaining some of the busiest highways in America. To begin, our maintenance workers are approved by the DOT, and required to regularly attend safety courses. For this reason, there is no need for any of our sponsors to take highway safety courses or worry about the liability of taking their own employees out to clean highways. In other words, we do all the work while our sponsors get the recognition.
While cleaning schedules and frequency vary from state to state, higher volume roadways generally have higher cleaning requirements. Sponsorship fees vary depending on each market due to requirements that are laid out by the DOT. Since pricing fluctuates for each market, you can always get more detailed information from our account managers when you visit adoptahighway.com/markets.
Which program is right for you?
Both the Sponsor A Highway® and Adopt A Highway® and volunteer programs are great ways to give back to your community! While there are differences in each program, there is a best fit for everyone. If you are an individual, group, or business looking to help your community, give us a call at 800-200-0003, or contact us here, and let us help you find your perfect stretch of highway!