ImOn delivering early in Fort Madison

EMBEDDING

But it's very exciting and we love to do this kind of stuff and embed ourselves into the fabric of the communities. It’s not like wanting to be a logo, we wanna be here and be present and do stuff like this all the time, not just during construction.”

Sam Finley, ImOn Community engagement coordinator

FORT MADISON – It appears there may be such a thing as a free lunch.
ImOn Communications isn’t just laying fiber all over the area, and they are, but they are also about making a splash.
On Wednesday, the new Internet service provider that is putting in fiber  optic infrastructure all over southeast Iowa, was set up in the Kempker Hardware parking lot giving away free pizza. And not just slices, whole personal pizzas fresh oven fired by Coal Haus 337 owner Chase Gibb.
Next to the familiar Coal Haus 337 canopy was a new ImOn canopy where technicians were helping residents identify service possibilities in a low-key approach with some swag spread about.
Sam Finley, community engagement coordinator for ImOn, said the company likes to thank communities for their patience during construction and let them know what is happening.
They did another free lunch giveaway with Wilson Bros BBQ down by the river earlier.
ImOn is an Internet service provider out of Cedar Rapids. They made a bid to acquire fiber upstart Danville Telecom in the spring and finalized the acquisition this week.
Lee County invested close to $2 million with Danville Telecom to build infrastructure, including a redundant fiber loop north of Keokuk. The deal was done through Southeast Iowa Regional & Economic Port Authority.  Danville bought out a lease agreement with SIREPA for $400,000 and then merged with ImOn.
Finley said ImOn wants communities in its service territory to know they want to be part of the community fabric.
“We like to do events in communities undergoing construction. We want to make sure people know that we're aware of how construction projects like this can go,” Finley said.
“So we’re just taking care of lunch. They can just show up completely free of any pressure. They don’t even have to talk to us,” he laughed.
Finley was with two ImOn representatives who were handling questions and mapping out service territories for those who had questions about the service and how to get hooked up.
He said Fort Madison’s rollout has been strong.
“Fort Madison has been going really well. We’ve actually done a couple of these events and they’ve all been well-attended,” he said.
Finley said announcements about the outreach events are typically spread on social media pages of the companies that are providing the food.
“They usually do that through their social media and their customers know where they will be,” he said.
“But it's very exciting and we love to do this kind of stuff and embed ourselves into the fabric of the communities. It’s not like wanting to be a logo, we wanna be here and be present and do stuff like this all the time, not just during construction.”
Gibb was on hand working the pizza oven himself and said Coal Haus has been extremely busy this year. This was the fourth time they’ve worked with ImOn to service pizzas in southeast Iowa.