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CIRCLEVILLE – In a final push to prove Circleville should advance in the America’s Best Communities (ABC) competition, residents are being encouraged to take to social media to share personal stories that show why the community is such a great place to live and work.
“We’re issuing this challenge to make sure we have all the help we can get to share Circleville’s unique story,” said Mayor Don McIlroy, who has helped lead the local ABC team. “This truly is one of America’s best communities, and no matter what happens in the next rounds of the competition, we need to be doing everything we possibly can to help more people understand why they should locate their business and raise their family right here in Circleville.”
The Circleville ABC team is also asking residents to use the hashtags #ABC50 to connect with the national conversation and #CirclevilleProud to link the social media conversation together locally.
“This is an opportunity for all of us to work together to help spread a positive message about Circleville and the bright future we have,” said Ryan Scribner, Director of Pickaway Progress Partnership. “Tweet by tweet, Facebook post by Facebook post, we can make an impact on public perceptions of our community and convince even more people to take the time to learn more about all Circleville has to offer.”
America’s Best Communities has been regularly sharing photos and videos from the towns and cities participating in the competition on its social media pages and with reporters and editors at national media outlets. The Circleville ABC team is confident an uptick in local social media activity will ensure Circleville gets a large share of the national attention being focused on this competition.
“If you’ve been working hard to give back this holiday season — helping our neighbors or supporting our community — share it on social media, and we’ll be able to show the world even more reasons why we are America’s best community,” McIlroy said.
Sponsored by Frontier Communications, DISH Network, CoBank and The Weather Channel, America’s Best Communities is a $10 million competition that aims to revitalize small towns and rural communities across the country.
About 400 communities entered the competition, and Circleville was among 50 nationwide that were selected to advance into the quarterfinals. Each community was awarded $50,000 to develop a Community Revitalization Plan. Local leaders were given six months to work on Circleville’s plan and were required to submit the plan for review on Nov. 6, 2015. A panel of independent expert judges is now evaluating the plans and will select 15 communities for the semifinals, which will be announced Jan. 13.
“The judges’ decisions will be based solely on the revitalization plan and application we submitted, but it certainly does not hurt our cause to ensure competition organizers are seeing more stories from our community in their social media newsfeeds every single day,” McIlroy said.
Circleville’s revitalization plan will help guide the growth of the local economy and support improvements to quality of life. Containing 82 pages, the plan establishes a bold community vision to become a top micro-politan center in the Midwest by 2030.
In addition, the document details four objectives to be met by 2030: doubling number of college graduates; increasing the population by 25 percent; cutting the poverty rate in half; and increasing per capita income from $20,453 to $30,000.
This article originally appeared on The Pickaway News Journal
