As the City of Ravenna celebrates its 225th birthday, Main Street Ravenna, a non-profit organization committed to preserving and revitalizing downtown Ravenna, wanted to do something special. The organization has partnered with Opoly Games, a business that custom designs Monopoly-styled board games, to make Ravenna-Opoly, a new board game that is patterned after Ravenna.
“It is a very exciting opportunity for the businesses that are signed up for it,” Board Member Jesse McClain told The Weekly Villager. “They are going to have their businesses showcased in a very unique way. Every business that signs up, gets a specific sponsorship spot on the board, and they are actually going to be featured in the Monopoly game.”
According to McClain, Main Street Ravenna President Chelsea Gregor was inspired to create a new Monopoly game that was based on Ravenna. He added that she met with Mayor Frank Seman, who had a Ravenna-Opoly game from several years ago.
Although there already existed a limited supply of Ravenna-Opoly board games, much has changed in Ravenna in the last several years.
McClain said that Main Street Ravenna posted the news about the game on social media and in a span of 24 hours, the organization had already received inquiries from approximately 25 local businesses that were interested in being sponsored on the 50-square game board.
“It is about community involvement,” noted McClain. “The end result is going to be two things: we are going to have something that if you are a business owner, you are going to be able to say ‘Hey, look, this is something that is unique that captures a point in time for Ravenna where my business is’ and you are going to say ‘Hey, I get to have this unequaled momentum and this board game.’”
Each business was allowed to only purchase one square on the board, but McClain added that the interest from local businesses has been so overwhelming that Main Street Ravenna is considering other ways to add sponsorships beyond the 50 squares.
“We did not have to do a lot of heavy lifting to go out and pursue people for this. It is people who are very interested in creating a better community for Ravenna, so they jump at the opportunity to get involved,” McClain said.
The initial timeline that Main Street Ravenna and Opoly Games projected was for production to begin now but it had been delayed as Main Street Ravenna is waiting for the outcome of a logo design contest.
“It is a contest and they put out some details about it and basically if you want to, the end result is that there will be a couple of logos that are selected in celebration of the 225th anniversary and one of those logos is going to be featured in the game,” McClain said.
The project is primarily being funded by Main Street Ravenna but they are also receiving contributions from the businesses who paid to have their likeness featured in the game.
“Every sponsor that gets involved will receive a game as well,” McClain said. “What it will eventually result in is a pretty substantial amount of fundraising for our organization. The fundraising will be used to fulfill our mission and vision statements.”
Main Street Ravenna originally ordered 500 copies of the exclusive board game to be created but because of the growing demand, they are considering increasing their order to 1,000 units.
The games will be available for purchase at Main Street Ravenna’s office, but they are in discussions with several partners and local businesses to also sell the game.
With such a limited supply, the game will only be available in Ravenna and all businesses sponsored in the game will be Ravenna-based.
“I think it will be something that, hopefully, individuals will get involved in or talk about how unique and awesome it is,” McClain said. “It helps get some exposure for Ravenna in general, but the board games themselves are going to be available to mainly the people in Ravenna who want them.”
Production of the game is scheduled to begin after the conclusion of the City’s logo design contest, which ends at the end of March, so the games will start being produced in April and will be available for purchase in August.
McClain said that the business designs on the board game were created by Main Street Ravenna based on briefs that they submitted to each local business. Main Street Ravenna followed guidelines originally set by Opoly Games.
