Jacksonville Main Street is again in the running for a prestigious award.
Main Street is one of 25 cities nationwide to advance to the semi-finals of the America’s Main Streets Contest. The winner of the annual contest will take home $25,000.00.
Executive Director Judy Tighe says Jacksonville Main Street has always fared well in the contest thanks to voting by the community. Tighe and her team hopes this is the year area residents can put them over the top.
“Independent We Stand and Stihl power equipment partner to do this America’s Main Street Contest every year. And for the last, probably five or six years, we have at least made into the semi-finals, because all of our residents love voting online for things, and we have made it into the finals a couple of times. We are still hoping that one of these times they will keep seeing our name on the list in the finals and they will pick us.”
Votes can be cast up to 25 times per day, per IP address and there is no cost or sign up to vote in the contest. Tighe says there is still a great need for votes to get Jacksonville Main Street back into the top ten for a chance at the prize.
“They will select ten organizations who will get into the finals and then their team will review the different organizations that make it into the final ten, and then pick a winner from one of those. We were planning on using the prize money if we would win, to go toward all of the events that we produce each year. We still have yet to see what those are going to look like this year, but we are going to do something we just don’t know what we are allowed to do just yet.”
Jacksonville Main Street and Pittsfield’s Historic Courthouse Square are the only organizations that reached the semi-finals from Illinois.
To vote in the America’s Main Streets contest, go to www.mainstreetcontest.com
You can also find information and a shareable link to the contest via the Jacksonville Main Street Facebook page.