What’s 14 feet tall, 48 feet wide, and does a big mitzvah? A billboard, on Lincoln Avenue, south of Devon Avenue.

Joel Byron runs a Skokie-based company called Outdoor Impact, after the fact that billboards and other such promotional signs are termed “outdoor advertising” by the industry. And, when this particular billboard of his is not advertising the product or services of a paying client, he uses it to advertise JUF. 

For free. Were he to charge for the space, the flat rate would cost 2,500 to 3,000 dollars a month.

This particular billboard has two sides, and the JUF message has been posted to both. The billboard is seen more than 78,500 times a week.

A Chicago native, Byron has been donating to JUF for 25 years. He began donating the billboard’s space early last year. 

So why is Byron doing all of this for free? At a time of division in our world, he said, “I wanted to do something that sent a positive message.”

The Lincoln avenue billboard is not the first time Byron has donated space to JUF. A few years ago, he recalls, he posted JUF messages on smaller billboards in shopping malls. 

After working in radio advertising for several years, he joined an outdoor-advertising firm, and then eventually launched his own.

Byron says he prefers billboards and other such advertising because, as he tells his clients, “it is a very cost-efficient medium, since the outdoors only has one ‘channel’ that everyone sees-and also, you can’t turn off a billboard.”