Hello again everyone

On behalf of Southern Maine Share Our Strength, where I am a volunteer, I'd like to ask for some help. All that I am asking for is a few seconds of your time each day from now until St. Patrick's Day. You see a while back So Maine SOS, the volunteer board and the fine-dining chefs who support us, cobbled together a letter to Bushmills Irish Whiskey, nominating Portland, ME as their "Twin City in America." This contest is in celebration of Bushmills' 400th Anniversary to distill. Well, as luck would have it, they liked what we wrote and Portland, ME is one of three finalist cities in the competition. The other two finalists are Louisville, KY and Boston, MA.

If Portland, ME gets enough votes and wins the competition, So Maine SOS will get a $20,000 grant and the City of Portland will get $20,000 to support responsible drinking programming.

 

The contest is looking for the US city that best embodies Bushmills quintessential values: pride of place, hospitality, craftsmanship and humor and wit. Bushmills is described as a small town with big spirit. We thought that sounded a lot like Portland. The team at Bushmills agreed.

 

Picking the Winner
For Portland to win people need to vote -- as often as once a day through March 17th (at bushmills400years.com). You DO NOT have to register your name and address or anything... all you need to do is vote.

 

After you vote you can enter a contest to win the "trip of a lifetime" to Ireland. You can register for this only once. You do not need to enter this contest in order to place a vote for Portland. You can do what many others are doing, hit the back button on your browser and vote a few more times!

Sense of Urgency
Unfortunately for Portland, the decision-makers at Bushmills thought Boston (1 million population) and Louisville (600K population) were small towns with big spirit, too. So, clearly the odds are against us. That said, we think Portland's pride of place is immense and more of us will be placing votes everyday than the people of Boston and Louisville. More of us will also be inviting family and friends to place votes and to help us spread word of the contest.

With your help, we can win this.

Thank you, Jim