Stihl presents America’s Main Streets Contest

By Ashley Robinson

DOVER-FOXCROFT — At the heart of Piscataquis County, Maine lies our quaint community of Dover-Foxcroft. Home of the famous “Maine Whoopie Pie Festival” which draws in over 10,000 people per year, our small town is striving to bring back its cultural heritage and revamp its downtown scene to create the most welcoming atmosphere for guests and residents alike. With numerous restaurants, bars and other small businesses lining both sides of East Main Street, Dover-Foxcroft is in hopes of restoring its historical, welcoming design and refurbishing many of its buildings facades, as well as providing park benches, trash cans and other downtown amenities to its sidewalks and storefronts.

The Dover-Foxcroft “Downtowners” is devoted to encouraging collaboration and interaction among residents, downtown businesses and town government to encourage growth of a vibrant, lively, inviting Main Street. Community friendly events to raise awareness and funding have been put on by the Downtowners in Union Square to promote green space and pedestrian friendly environments.

Dover-Foxcroft became a Network Community with the Maine Downtown Center in 2010 and adheres to its successful Four Point Approach. New trashcans are set to hit the streets of Dover-Foxcroft within the next couple of weeks and will be maintained by members of the Downtowners, all of which are residents and business owners, working together with the town and volunteering their own time. As you may have noticed in past years, members of the Downtowners along with town government have collaborated to place flower boxes on East Main Street to brighten up the sidewalks and create a more welcoming environment to the downtown area. Many other ideas have been running through the minds of the Downtowners group, however, funding is limited.

Dover True Value, one of the most centrally located businesses downtown, are proud dealers of Stihl Power Equipment and have entered Dover-Foxcroft Downtown into a contest presented by Stihl. The contest, called “America’s Main Streets”, is offering a $25,000 check to the winning town which is decided by public vote.

Stihl officials say. “Stihl and Independent We Stand are teaming up to help promote the importance and strong economic benefits of these Main Streets and the small businesses that help them thrive.” The money goes toward creating the type of Main Street that the Dover-Foxcroft Downtowners can, as of now, only dream about. Of course these dreams are not only the dreams of the Downtowners group, but of all residents of Dover-Foxcroft.

It is true that volunteering is not for everyone. Busy lives and limited free time are a reality for most of us so taking a Saturday to plant those flower boxes or direct the kids games downtown at Halloween are not at the top of everyone’s to do list. But with all the hours spent on Facebook and web surfing, a vote for our town each day is easy and something we can do to help out our cherished town.

To turn this dream into a reality, please go to www.mainstreetcontest.com, search for Dover-Foxcroft Downtown and click VOTE. You may do this every 24 hours and on as many IP addresses that you can get to. Each and every vote is a step closer to a dream come true for our downtown area and we need as many votes as we can get. So pass along the info, rally the troops and help our town pull ahead in this exciting contest!

Also, if you are interested in learning more about becoming apart of the Dover-Foxcroft Downtowners, search for Dover-Foxcroft Downtowners on Facebook.

The time has arrived for Dover-Foxcroft to celebrate our close knit, welcoming community and to speak out for a continuation of hometown pride. We want our visitors to experience first hand the beauty that our residents already know is there.