Live positively, Hawaii!

June 22, 2012

Melissa Chang,

Mayor Carlisle, City directors, Coca Cola and Junior Lifeguards at yesterday’s presentation

Update: July 6 ~ We are currently in ninth place! For a tally of points and to see the leader board, click here.

******************************************

Hawaii, it’s time again to show your local pride! I’m working on a public service campaign for a nationwide contest called “Live Positively – America Is Your Park” and Ala Moana Beach Park has been designated as Hawaii’s one for this contest. Winning park gets a $100,000 grant from Coca-Cola.

How do we win? Easy — all you have to do is click here and vote for the park as many times as you want until July 15. It’s free, it’s easy, you can do it from your computer or phone. (Note that if you are using Google Chrome, it will give you an error message.)

How do we win faster? Even easier! FIRST: Please click here and hit the “Connect to Foursquare” button to sync it with your Foursquare account — one time only. SECOND: Check in on Foursquare at Ala Moana Regional Park (it has to be this specific one to count).

Each Foursquare check in gets you 100 votes.
You can check in up to three times an hour, no more than 28 times a day.
You don’t have to make it public.
You don’t have to physically be at Ala Moana Regional Park to check in.
You may get a message that says, “Sorry, no points for this check in.” This means you PERSONALLY don’t get Foursquare points, but your check in will still count 100 votes toward the campaign.

Don’t think we have a chance? When we first started looking at the leaderboard a couple of weeks ago, Ala Moana was at 176th place. At this writing, we are up to 30th place, just with a few crazy friends checking in and voting — which tells you how far we can go if we get more people doing this. Mayor Peter Carlisle held a press conference yesterday to announce the City & County of Honolulu’s support of the contest. At that time, Coca Cola gave Ala Moana Beach Park a $10,000 “America Is Your Park” grant (separate from the contest) to help with any immediate improvements. City Parks Director Gary Cabato said he already knows what he’s going to do with the larger grant, one task being to replenish much of the sand on the eroding beach.

We’ll be holding a tweet up there on July 1 to get more excitement going for the campaign, so stay tuned. The hashtag is #VoteParks.

Even if we don’t get first place, the second place park gets $50,000, the third place park gets $25,000, and a $15,000 grant will be awarded at random to a park ranked 4th through 25th at the end of the contest. The recreation grants are provided to help restore, rebuild or enhance activity areas in parks where people can play and be active. Each park can decide how to use the funds, but Coca-Cola gives examples like a new bike path, basketball court, or a park makeover.

So until July 15, just keep voting at tinyurl.com/livepono and checking in on Foursquare. For more information, you can also go to www.facebook.com/LivePonoHawaii.

Don’t have Foursquare yet? Just download the free app to your iPhone, Android or Blackberry to get started. And thanks for living positively!