Starbucks Contest Heats Up for Marquette Business

Marquette, MI – April 24, 2012 – With only one week remaining, Northern Initiatives finds itself out of first place.

For the first two weeks of the Starbucks Vote.Give.Grow. Program, Northern Initiatives held a slight first place lead in Michigan. However, by the end of week three that lead had diminished from first place to third place as voting for Starbucks’ Vote.Give.Grow. Program reached a fever pitch. With awareness of the competition growing nationwide, the amount of votes received during week three was more than double the total votes received since the program began.

Northern Initiatives own work to grow awareness of the program throughout this month saw its biggest payoff so far as they garnered twice as many votes last week as they had in the first two weeks combined. Yet, with such a small population of Starbucks’ in the community, that rural disadvantage became obvious as Northern Initiatives found themselves 173 votes out of first place. And with only one week left to vote, Northern Initiatives is counting on everyone in the community to show their support one more time to help them bring $35,000 of new resources to Northern Michigan.

“After reviewing the numbers from last week, we concluded that we would need an additional 250 new votes to have a chance at finishing in first place,” stated Northern Initiatives president, Dennis West. “Since only one vote can be cast per person, every new vote received from now until the end of the month will be extremely important.”

To vote for Northern Initiatives to win first place in Michigan and $35,000 in the Starbucks Vote.Give.Grow. Program, go to www.votegivegrow.com and follow the instructions to turn your Starbucks Card into a Community Card. If you don’t have a Starbucks Card, you can get one on the site to participate. Vote for Northern Initiatives.

Northern Initiatives is located in Marquette, MI on the campus of Northern Michigan University. Visit the website www.northerninitiatives.com or call (800) 254-2156 for more information about NI products and services.