Hi,

Live the change support local farmers.....by creating a permenant indoor farmers market in my community.

I entered this contest and I am reaching out to people who I think would be supportive of my cause.

If you could post this on your blog or send it to your network I would really appreciate your help.

I need your help and as many people's help as I can muster up.  Votes must be in by Friday Feb 29

http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/894-Permanent-Indoor-Farmers-Market


I am one of the top 8 finalists for this month's  Advanta ideablob.com $10,000 prize
I have less than one week left to get enough votes in to win the $10,000 for the Eugene Farmers Market project.  You can read about the project when you click on the link to vote for my idea: http://ideablob.com/ideas/894-Permanent-Indoor-Farmers-Market

If you have voted in earlier rounds, you will need to go vote again, ...this is now the FINAL vote so you must vote again.

If you have not voted/registered before, it will require you to create a username, password and enter your name and email address, then you will have to verify your registration with a click through on the email they send to your email address.

I would appreciate it if you can please pass this on to others who would be supportive of my cause, it's crucial that it happens now.

Here's the link to vote for my idea: http://ideablob.com/ideas/894-Permanent-Indoor-Farmers-Market

February 2008 Finalist
Make my idea the $10,000 idea!
Vote anytime between
February 22 -- February 29


I hope you will vote for my idea :)

My idea is based on the Farmers market project that they are doing in Santa Fe NM. 
http://www.santafefarmersmarket.com/institute/future/

I envision a great indoor/outdoor building, room for 150 plus vendors, would have leaseable office space, a restaurant (like the farmers diner in vermont: http://www.farmersdiner.com/) , community gathering space, a commercial kitchen for those who need one to create value added products, cold storage and root cellar, outdoor green space and it is a LEED certified building, etc.

The initial $10,000 would be given directly to a non-profit in Eugene so that the dialog can be moved forward, bringing together the stake holders in the community that would need to have a say and be part of something like this.

With the initial $10,000 a professional facilitator could be hired to start moving the project forward by creating a community dialog to help our community come to a decision on what the best way would be to implement something like this would be.

Because there has been so much previous dialog and people have not been able to move forward due to their historical differences about the project, I see myself as an impartial instigator, someone who does not have a personal stake in the project so I am the perfect person to bring the idea forward.

I also see a group similar to the Friends of the Library group that finally made the Eugene Library happen
called: Friends of the Farmers Market or something like that, to run the capital campaign to make this project a reality here.

Thanks for your time.

I appreciate your help.

Regards,
Erin Ely
Eugene, Oregon
Community Activist