A Move Toward a Better Future: Sea Bright Wins

Main Street Makeover Contest

The news was much needed for this small beach town, Sea Bright, which my wife and I called our home for 10 years prior to the landfall of Hurricane Sandy. The storm surge devastated the town and the downtown business district.

 

Now, the road to rebuilding the downtown can finally begin with the announcement that Sea Bright won the “Main Street Matters” contest sponsored by New Jersey based paint manufacturer, Benjamin Moore.

 

The contest awarded 20 different towns nationwide with a free makeover of a two or three block section of their downtown paid for by Benjamin Moore. This contest was an on-line based competition, which Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long was very involved with drumming up support via Twitter and social media.

 

Slow Rebuilding

 

I was so excited at the news of the contest victory for Sea Bright because the rebuilding process has been very slow in the months since Sandy ravaged this small town nestled between the Shrewsbury River and the Atlantic Ocean.

The federal aid money has been distributed at a very slow pace, as the saying goes that I have heard recently, Sandy victims are paying for “the sins of Katrina” referring to the rampant misuse and abuse of federal funds following that disaster.

This contest provides a shot in the arm to Sea Bright, which desperately needs one at this point. Benjamin Moore will provide the necessary quantity of paint, stain, and supplies for the exterior buildings of the two to three block area selected by the respective winning town. Their color experts will assist in the color selection and a group of professional painters will provide the service of doing the actual work on the building exteriors.

 

Social Media and the Victory

 

Sea Bright was very active in social media to gather support for the participation needed to win this on-line competition, which displays the changed society in which we live in. The town created a separate Facebook page named “All About Sea Bright”  https://www.facebook.com/groups/AllAboutSeaBright/

This page became integral to the community gathering the votes necessary to win the contest. The campaign for social media was very effective. Personally, I received a Twitter message every day to vote for the contest.

 

Benjamin Moore deserves some credit here too, many corporations have made donations of funds to the relief efforts of Hurricane Sandy, but this contest takes the rebuilding effort directly to the community in need. This donation of needed paint and supplies covers the cost that Sea Bright would have had to wait a long period of time to get these supplies through other resources.

 

 

The Future

 

I have seen Sea Bright at its lowest point just following the horrible events of Hurricane Sandy where the town was decimated. I saw destruction on a scale I had never seen before, and I was not sure if the town would ever make it back.

The future will entail a lot of work to rebuild Sea Bright, but the people in the community are united and believe in that cause very strongly. The Benjamin Moore contest brings new meaning to “Main Street Matters” in the case of Sea Bright it matters a great deal. It is a symbolic gesture toward rebuilding the place that we all remember as a wonderful town with incredible natural beauty that is part of the fabric of the New Jersey Shore.

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