In the coming months, Florida motorists can hit the road with a “Florida Stands With Israel” specialty license plate on their vehicle.

A four-year effort to sell 3,000 pre-order vouchers was met just as the Oct. 15 deadline expired, ensuring the state will soon begin production and distribution of the license plates. The specialty plate will join 170 others from Save the Manatees to Play Tennis to one for Everglades University, adorning the backs of Florida cars and trucks.

For most of the past four years, it looked like getting enough pre-order vouchers sold was a lost cause, but some 11th-hour marketing magic from Michael Ackerman, a Jewish man from Boca Raton, saved the day.

Here is what he was up against: The drive to sell the required minimum of 3,000 vouchers (at a cost of $33 per voucher) began in 2020. In the first few months, sales hit 121, then that figure remained static for several years and supporters believed their effort had failed.

Even when the pre-sales deadline was extended to Oct. 15, 2024, there was still little hope of reaching the goal. The drive was about 2,600 short of success with less than three months to go.

But when Oct. 15 rolled around, in a miracle befitting the Maccabees at Hanukkah, supporters boasted 3022 vouchers sold, Ackerman said.

“It was right down to the wire, a battle and a labor of love. I am very grateful we reached the goal,” said Ackerman, a man with more than 40 years of sales and marketing experience.

How did it happen?

In 2020 with bipartisan approval and at the urging of the Israeli-American Council (IAC), state lawmakers approved creation of a specialty “Florida Stands With Israel” plate and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill.

Then a contest to design the plate was held, sponsored by IAC and Artists4Israel. A Florida State University graduate, Daniel Ackerman (son of marketer Michael Ackerman) won the contest, topping more than 100 other entries. The plate features Florida’s state flower, the orange blossom, intertwined with the Israeli flag, with elements of the sand of Florida’s beaches and Israel’s desert.

The state set a deadline of two years for the 3,000 pre-sale vouchers to be purchased. For the first few months, a marketing firm promoted sales of the vouchers, but soon went out of business as the Covid pandemic dragged on.

When the original deadline passed in 2022, only 121 vouchers had been sold. Michael Ackerman believes that the pandemic was to blame. Not only were people focused on the battle against covid and largely isolated, the Department of Motor Vehicles offices were closed for some time.

Fast forward about a year. As the Hamas terror attacks took place on Oct. 7, 2023, Michael Ackerman and his wife were in Jerusalem visiting their son Daniel, who had made aliyah in 2021 and was working as an illustrator and graphic designer. Just after the attacks, there was a huge outpouring of support for Israel and Daniel made an offhand comment that it was too bad the license plate effort fell short and people could not show support for Israel with the specialty license plate.

After Michael Ackerman returned to Florida, he decided to check with state officials to confirm the deadline had passed in 2022. To his surprise, he learned the deadline for the specialty plate had been given a two-year extension, in recognition of the ill effects of the pandemic. The new deadline was Oct. 15, 2024.

Even with more time to reach the 3,000-voucher goal, as of July 26, 2024, Jewish Southern Living magazine reported that only 430 vouchers had been sold.

The final push

That was around the time Michael Ackerman’s marketing campaign kicked into gear. He talked to people at synagogues, restaurants, stores, anywhere he could think of to spread the word, and he found receptive audiences, not just among Jews but also Evangelical Christians. One Christian radio station in Naples made frequent announcements about the specialty plate vouchers. Across the state, including the Tampa JCCs & Federation. social media notices about the plates and how to buy vouchers were posted. By then there was even a website all about the specialty plates (FloridaStandsWithIsrael.org)

One provision from the start of the voucher campaign is that $25 from each Florida Stands With Israel plate sale would go to support the emergency first aid work of Hatzalah South Florida, which provides free emergency response for callers of every faith and background in the Miami-Boca Raton area. All specialty plates sold in Florida are tied to a charity that derives a benefit.

After Michael Ackerman learned the deadline was extended, he reached out to Hatzalah officials, who also thought the deadline had expired in 2022. He offered his marketing services to help push the voucher sales effort over the finish line, and they agreed. It took a few months to gear up the marketing effort, he said, but sales of vouchers really took off in the closing months.

All vouchers purchased had to be tied to a Florida driver and their license plate, but Ackerman emphasized that folks could buy multiple vouchers for the same vehicle, paying ahead with each voucher so that they could be used from one tag renewal to another until the vouchers were exhausted. Another helpful factor was that people from out of the state could buy vouchers as gifts to friends who were registered Florida drivers.

Now that the goal has been reached, sale of pre-orders has been temporarily halted in order for the initial batch of pre-ordered plates to be made and distributed. That is expected to be completed by late January to mid-February, then the state will resume producing and selling more of the Florida Stands With Israel plates.

The cost of the specialty plates for those who did not buy pre-sales vouchers will be the regular fee of $36.90, plus an additional fee of $30, for a total of $66.90.

Ackerman said the FloridaStandsWithIsrael.org website will have updated information when new sales of the specialty plates.

Since multiple vouchers were purchased for some vehicles, initially only 1,200 cars or trucks or RVs will have the tags. To keep the initiative going, there must be 3,000 individual drivers with the Florida Stands With Israel plates on their vehicles by February 2026, and continue at that level or higher each year going forward.