Caroline County, this affects your future.  We only have a few days left and have not met the signature goal.  Please take a moment to share the petition on your personal social media pages.  We need a lot more signatures, but comments are even more important.  If you haven’t signed, please do so.  If you signed but haven’t commented, please go back and do so.

Signatures have stalled just above 800 and we need to reach at least 1,000 before the deadline of August 24th.  This initiative by the Caroline Broadband Internet Committee will be connecting approximately 5000 homes to fiber (high speed) internet.  The ratio of signatures to homes-in-need is staggeringly low and we must do better.

Caroline’s Broadband Internet Committee has publicly supported this petition and will be including its signatures and comments in this year’s VATI Grant application submission for Caroline County.  They have stated that this kind of community voice carries a lot of weight.  We can’t emphasize enough that YOUR VOICES MATTER, but you have to speak up HERE for it to be heard.

To put it plainly, without the VATI Grant, Caroline residents will continue to struggle with their current services or lack thereof and our county will continue to be left behind as Caroline just simply does not have the financial means to provide countywide broadband internet without it.  Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the VATI Grant will continue to be an option in the future.  We lost it last year.  We need to secure it NOW.

I have exhausted all my personal resources to find new signatures.  PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD!  Make sure that your family, friends, significant other, church group, co-workers, are aware and have signed.  I see so many people voicing frustrations and concerns about their internet or lack thereof on several local Facebook pages- but this petition is where your voice will be heard where it MATTERS and can bring actual changes to this problem.

If you have signed and haven’t commented, please go back and add a comment. Signatures are fantastic and any effort you make is appreciated but comments are YOUR CHANCE TO SPEAK UP where it can actually make a difference! Share your difficulties concerning your current ISP, cell tower, satellite internet, data capped services, congested services, reliability, dial up, lack of internet access, high prices, etc.  This is the opportunity to express your needs of affordable, reliable high-speed internet to the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative (VATI).  

Thank you to everyone that has supported this effort- please continue to help with the final push!

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*Important Note: Please DO NOT PAY to promote the petition on change. org.  To those who have paid for a promotion, thank you- your support is truly appreciated.  However, these paid promotions are not being targeted geographically and are bringing in signatures from people outside of Caroline County.  While we certainly appreciate support of any kind, it needs to come from residents within the county itself to be relevant for the VATI Grant.  (The last time I checked there were 116 signatures from non-residents funneled in by paid promotions.)