By Sarah Folmar, Brand Communications Specialist
We will be announcing the 2014 Bark for Your Park finalist communities this evening. Can you believe it is already time? We all still remember the early stages of planning, and just can’t believe how fast the contest is passing by so far! Our team is so excited to tell you who the finalists are, but you’ll have to wait just a few more hours. Is the anticipation building?
You can see the finalists announced on our website at 5pm ET this evening, or you can get a “leg up” on finding out the 15 finalists by tuning into our LIVE UStream broadcast at 3:00! We’ll be talking about the next phase of the contest, and then announcing the long-awaited community names.
If you’re just now hearing about the Bark for Your Park contest, find out some reasons why having a dog park can be a great addition to your community with our infographic.
So far in the contest, we’ve seen some incredible efforts from so many communities. We have looked at several city pages to browse comments, and it was so much fun to check out what the city members had to say. Some participants would give a vote total each day to encourage other members of the community to sign-up and start voting. Others would upload pictures of dogs that would benefit from a new park. If your community does not happen to make it to the finals, one great way to gear up for next year is to look at the city pages of the finalist communities to see what kind of barking they did! And this doesn’t mean you have to stop participating this year. You can always help another community by voting for them to receive funding for a dog park.
Some communities started Facebook pages and Twitter pages, held events to rally more support and held town meetings to discuss having a dog park. Did your community do anything PAWsome this year? We’d love to hear about it! Leave a comment on this post, and let others see what your community members did.
We also wanted to bark a big THANK YOU to all of the participants so far in the contest. Not only have you nominated your cities to win money for dog parks, but you have raised awareness of why having a dog park is so great. Your barks have certainly been heard around the country, and we are absolutely blown away by the response thus far in the contest.
What’s next? Well, in a matter of hours we will begin to listen to all of the barking for the 15 finalist communities! The barking will continue through July 31st, and we will announce the winners of the 2014 Bark for Your Park contest on August 7th. So remember to watch our LIVE broadcast and BARK FOR YOUR PARK!
