downtown fresno blog

Posted by DFP Staff

Last night our Downtown Fresno Ambassadors had a chance to kick back and relax at a Fresno Grizzlies game, where they were honored for their service to downtown. This included throwing out the first pitch and enjoying the game from the City of Fresno’s suite.

The ambassador program has been in full swing for two years now providing more than just a friendlier face for downtown. Aside from giving dining suggestions and directions to visitors to downtown Fresno, our ambassadors do a whole lot more than you may have noticed. They’re kind of like superheroes in that way.

In the last year alone, ambassadors have removed almost 600 individual pieces of graffiti and reported 2.371 pieces to the City of Fresno Graffiti Abatement team. Ambassadors also report when things are vandalized in other ways, such as wire theft or broken windows, to either the city, county or property owners. Because it is their job to walk downtown for 4-6 hours each day, ambassadors are usually the first to know when problems arise and have a very good relationship with the Fresno Police Bike Patrol.

We’ll soon be adding a security component to our ambassador program with a private security patrol that will also have ambassador training for nights after our regular ambassador shift has ended.

But back to the friendly faces thing- ambassadors have assisted upwards of  114,800 people since the program started in 2012. That’s a lot of “Sure, I can walk with you to the Health Department” and “I’d be happy to accompany you to the spiral garage.” in a short amount of time.  They even do the unglamorous job of litter removal when they see things might be out of hand.

We’ve gotta give it to our ambassadors, they’re making downtown Fresno a better place one restaurant guide at a time.