After meeting Joyce Kleifield, I knew I had met my match.  A powerhouse full of energy and ideas.  Organized and plain smart.  I instantaneously adored her.  Finally, someone enthusiastically on the same page.  She just got it immediately.

What do I mean by “get it” you ask?  Well, ok, let’s go back to the beginning. 

I recently got an offer to help out the Fairfax Business Association re-do it’s website, brand and marketing.  Like the avenue itself, the FBA is in need of a re-vitalization.  Joyce is the Association’s Chairperson.

It’s a terrific project!  Old meets new. Vintage meets modern.  Urban and community.  A walking section of the enormously “pocketed” city of Los Angeles that is a virtually unknown cultural hub. — Of course not by the time I am through.

Listening to Joyce was a breath of fresh air.  She spoke about her two brilliant sons, sans bragging.  One of which had done all of the original photography for the current website.  We are keeping all of it – it’s soooo good.  The other a budding teen filmmaker.  It is Hollywood after all.  And then began to communicate the enormity of the Fairfax undertaking.  For many years now Joyce and very few others have been shouldering the burden of trying to organize the various landlords, businesses and citizens of the surrounding area in banding together to maintain cleaner streets, street lamps, increase garbage pickup and more.  The new beautifully landscaped North Fairfax median is completely due to her dedication and the generous support of resident liason Robert McCray.  It is the coup de gras of the current campaign.  But nothing lasts forever without maintainence.  And so it is left for these two fellows, as it were, to continue burgeoning on finding ever more resources and grants. 

 Joyce had just returned from the Melrose Association’s meeting with flyers, brochures and a notebook of handwritten information.  I could see why she was in such demand as a fundraiser.  She is tenacious and accurate.  It was enough to almost make me feel unprepared for our meeting.  Almost.  I was, in fact, armed.

Simple straitforward notes dense with strategy and best of all a demo website brilliantly provided in under an hour by my creative partner, Michael Cornell of Semplice Pictures.  She gushed.  Help had arrived.

In the weeks and months to come this will provide the brand(ed) new launching pad to finally attracting  desperately needed community support, getting Fairfax Avenue back in the limelight as an LA destination.  And with so much to discover from Willoughby to Wilshire, it’s just the kind of urban adventure I have been dying to embark upon.

Starting next Monday — lunch at Cantors!  YUM!!!!