National Public Works Week May 18 - 24, 2025

Since 1960, the American Public Works Association (APWA) has sponsored National Public Works Week. Across North America more than 32,000 APWA members in the US and Canada use this week to energize and educate the public on the importance of the contribution of public works to their daily lives: planning, building, managing, and operating the heart of our local communities and building the quality of life.

Instituted as a public education campaign by the APWA in 1960, National Public Works Week (NPWW) calls attention to the importance of public works in community.

APWA encourages public works agencies and professionals to take the opportunity to make their stories known in their communities. The occasion is marked each year with scores of resolutions and proclamations from mayors and governors. Some special historical highlights of NPWW include a United States Senate resolution affirming the first National Public Works Week in 1960, letters of acknowledgment from Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson, and a Presidential Proclamation signed by John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Each year, the NPWW focuses on a theme. The 2025 National Public Works Week Poster Theme is "People, Purpose, Presence". This year National Public Works Theme highlights how public works makes communities safer, more vibrant, and a better place to live. Whether serving as first responders, responding to electricity outages, providing regular waste pickup, or making roads and sidewalks passable after a winter weather event, public works is always there when people need them.

Public Works helps keep communities strong by providing an infrastructure of services in water and wastewater, streets, stormwater, and traffic, utility repairs, public buildings and spaces, parks and grounds, emergency management and first response, and right-of-way management. They are what make our communities great places to live and work. Public Works provides the harmony needed for collaboration with all the stakeholders in capital projects, infrastructure solutions, and quality of life services.

National Public Works Week is a celebration of the tens of thousands of men and women in North America who provide and maintain the infrastructure and services collectively known as Public Works. National Public Works Week is observed each year during the third full week of May. Through NPWW and other efforts, APWA seeks to raise the public's awareness of Public Works issues and to increase confidence in Public Works employees who are dedicated to improving the quality of life for present and future generations.