My Onion (:

Hello, my name is Brandi, I am also one of the awesome people from the UNITY Youth Leadership Program, and one of the people who came up with the idea for a skatepark in North Adams. This post is named "My Onion" because like onions, I, as well as a lot of people, have layers. And I have never seen a community with so many layers no matter if it is from kids to adults, come together as one, like this one. North Adams and all of its supporters are just totally fabulous and should be so proud of themselves! So this is why you should vote, in my opinion, or onion, which ever you prefer. Think about the youth, we are your future! I know, as a teenager, we didn't really feel respected as we do now. Seeing all of the older community members spread their wings and help us to sore to a new destination in life and ourselves is truly inspiring as well as refreshing knowing they are there for us. So, why vote you still ask? Great question! Look at all of us teens working together with everyone we can to try and not get, but earn this. Also, lets keep youth off the streets, off drugs, and in schools. A lot of people say that with a skatepark in town youth are going to be engaging more in these types of activity's such as smoking pot, or even going to the extreme and dropping out. Lets face it, youth don't need a skatepark for those things. They are going to do what they want, and just because it's there doesn't mean they are going to use it for those purposes. And it’s not just for the youth either. It’s for the adults too. A nice place to take your child who wants to learn to skate, or go have a coffee and admire the success of a community sticking together as a whole and making something happen for everyone.
So, what are you waiting for? VOTE!
You know you want to! Every way, Everyday!
Via text (text 102522 to 73774),
Via facebook on the refresh everything app,
and
Via refresheverything.com with your email.
Come on, it's what? 30 seconds out of your day to help and change the community in the most positive way.
I look forward to seeing our ranking reach number one with people like you voting!
And remember, just a few days left, so lets get everyone you know to vote, vote, vote! :D

Donations + Thank Yous Round-Up

 ...Our billboard is up! I drove down Route 8 yesterday afternoon to check it out. It looks beautiful. No matter how this contest turns out, I have to say that I'm excited to see such a public display of community support for something that kids/teens want and are willing to work hard for. Thank you all.

We've had a lot of other forms of community support rolling in over the past week. Here are a few people and businesses who I'd like to give special shout-outs to:

front/back of our postcard

*Keith Bona (Bona Marketing and City Councilor) had donated a great deal of printing for the project. He made 1,000 stickers that we are selling at a suggested donation price of $1. You can buy them at the Coalition office and Papyri Books (NA). Keith also made about 1,000 colorful postcards with voting instructions for the Pepsi contest about 1,000 colorful business cards wth instructions. If you have a place to distribute these great promotional items, please let me know or stop by the office!

*Excelsior Printing donated 1,000 copies of our flyer. This allowed us to continue to give Village Pizza, Christo's Famous Pizza, and Supreme Pizza and Wings flyers to attach to their delivery boxes. Special thanks to Julie Fruscio at Excelsior for reaching out and making it happen! And much love to our local pizza joints for helping us spread the word.

*Becks Printing also donated 1,000 copie of the flyer! This might seems like a lot, but with 3 pizza places distributing flyers we go through hundreds in a weekend. Thank you, Becks!

*A friend from college who I haven't seen in years and my best friend from high school both mailed in donations to help defray our promotional costs. Thank you so much Beth Ethier and Kate Forrestall! 

Please be sure to thanks these printers and pizza places for their support of our project! 

Our Name in Lights

Check this out!!!

Look out for our billboard which will be up on Route 8 in North Adams, near Ernie's Autos. Should be up by this Wednesday, 9/15. It's a lighted board, so you'll be able to see it all hours of the day and night. We're very excited and hopeful that this will bring us a boost in votes! Please let us know what you think when you see it.

Important Fact About Texting Votes!

Just wanted to make sure that everyone knows this key fact about texting in your votes: if you don't get a confirmation text back from Pepsi, your vote did NOT go through. Please send again. This is frustrating, I know, but it will usually go through on the 2nd or 3rd try. I wanted to bring this up because it's happened to me a few times. THANKS FOR YOUR VOTES!

Labor Day Weekend!

Hey Everybody!

This Saturday our skatepark volunteers worked at the North Adams Farmers Market and at MASS MoCA's Reggae Soul Dance Party! At the Farmers Market we got to see several friendly faces who wanted to help us out. I even taught people who had never texted before how to send in their vote through a text message! We drew on the sidewalk again and were helped out by passer-bys. This time we didn't just have flyers we had delicous baked goods from Kate Merrigan, Bert Lamb and Laini Sporbert. There were brownies, blondies, muffins, etc. The prices ranged from $0.50-$1 and were a big hit. Some people even just donated their change instead. I'm amazed at how our community is being pulled together by this project.

Later on in the day some of our volunteers went to the Reggae Soul Dance Party! The volunteers handed out lots of flyers and danced! Volunteer, Chris Cozzaglio said, "It was amazingly fun and everyone was really responsive, even the band!" Even with all of this support from North Adams residents at the Farmers Market and the Reggae Soul Dance Party attendants we're at number 35 =[ If everyone posts a status on facebook or tells one friend, I bet we could get up to number 29 again this week! How awsome would that be? The young people of North Adams are finally doing something to work for what we want but we can't do it without you! So please don't forget to vote everyday, 3x a day!

Thanks so much!

Kaitlin LaValley(you're number one fan!)

The first 3 days by Kaitlin!!

My names Kaitlin LaValley and I was one of the original teens to bring up the idea of a skatepark. At the first UNITY meeting we made "our dream North Adams." When we put a skatepark in north adams, we thought it was just a crazy dream and now its become a reality! This is all thanks to YOU! Everyone at the coalition has been working our butts off trying to get everyone to hear about what we've been doing. Me and my friend and fellow UNITY member, Chris Cozzaglio, started off on Tuesday bringing crazy ideas to our awsome principal Mr. Klompus. We asked 1)Can we announce our plan to the school during lunches and get them to vote on their cells? and 2) Hang up posters in the school and around Adams during our Independant Learning Time? We figured he might let us announce it and hang up posters in BArT but he suprised us when he let us do everything we wanted! So like everyone else working on this awsome project we got to go around informing people about whats going on. We got to talk with some really great people with great ideas for a few hours while hanging posters in local shops. After school we went to the coalition to continue our kickoff day. We handed out flyers, called Tanchhhhh from Fly 92, and even posed for pictures!
The next day I continued my advertising as i spammed all of my friends and family through my cell and facebook. I was super excited to hear that everyone voting, thats YOU, had us in 27th place! That is absolutely crazy seeing as this started with a silly poster board and a North Adams designed by us. Today got scary when all my friends asked what was wrong as the texting was down. However, to make up for it my awesome teachers Mr. Griffin and Ms. Calderara, let me and my friend Nicole paint the texting numbers on their cars! I'm so happy with how much our community is helping us out! After school I went to the coalition today. As Kate was spamming celebrities me and a few other volunteers made table toppers for local restraunts and stores. I even walked down to Staples to ask about red paper being donated as thats what we use for all the posters and everything hanging around Berkshire County.
So as you can tell it's been a super fun, and super busy 3 days... Tomorrow I'll work my butt off again at the Farmers Market so I hope to see all of our supporters there! Unfortunately I won't be at the Moca dance party but my uber awsome friends will be, so be sure to say hi there too!

Thanks SOOOO much for being so supportive,
Kaitlin LaValley(your number one fan!)

Day 2 Round-Up: Have Heart, Hold on for Big Guns

I've heard from people today who were extremely excited to see us placed variously at #26-#30 in the ranks for the $250K prize money. I spoke with others who were concerned by how far this is from the #1 and #2 spots we need to climb into by 9/30 in order to win the cash. So, I wanted to take a little time here at the end of the day to offer some perspective and encouragement.

First of all, we are, at this moment on 9/2/10, in 27th place. That's 26 places away from first. But you know what? There are 349 total entries in the $250K funding category, so I think it's actually a pretty sweet debut. I'm thrilled by this foothold in the top 30. And I challenge you to think of it that way: a foothold. A spot where we can steady ourselves, assess, and then from which we can launch upward.

Here's some more good news: we haven't even begun yet. Our aces are still up our sleeves. Our big guns are still in the locker. Some upcoming strategies I'd like to keep quiet, lest we leak them to our competitors. But I can share a few bits with you:

• Drury, McCann, and Mount Greylock high schools start school tomorrow. We have students in each school who will be helping to spread the word. SO: those votes have yet to be added.
• We will be tabling at a bunch of community events, but haven't even started yet! Look for us at the North Adams Farmers Market every Saturday in September, at MoCA's Reggae Soul Dance Party this Saturday night, at Pittsfield's Third Thursday, and at events at local high schools and colleges through the month. 
• Billboard. On Route 8 (Curran Highway). Soon. 
• My dear and wacky sister, Meghan Merrigan, has agreed to stand outside NBC's Today Show holding up a sign with our voting info. 
• Your amazing promotional ideas that you've yet to share with us. Please do so in the comments!

Thanks, and please keep VOTING! :)