New Ventures Maine recently announced winners of the Fall 2023 Marketing Mini-Grant competition.

Axe Women Loggers of Maine in Bar Harbor (Alissa Wetherbee, owner) is the NVME Marketing Mini-Grant winner in the Northern Maine/Downeast region.

Axe Women Loggers of Maine is a team of professional timber sports athletes. The team travels throughout North America competing, performing, and teaching logging sports at expos, festivals, agricultural fairs and competitions. Members of the team include world champions, world record-holders, collegiate champions, and rising stars in the sport.

The $1,000 award will be used towards fees to attend industry trade shows, conferences and conventions; updating printed and digital marketing materials; and email campaigns.

Six winners, in six regions across Maine, will receive cash grants of $1,000 awarded through a competitive application process. Mini-grants support new or expanded business marketing and promotion. Contest criteria for small business applicants included: 1) Five or fewer full-time equivalent employees; 2) sales in the current calendar year; and 3) gross annual sales of no more than $150,000 from the previous calendar year.

The competition was sponsored in part by Katahdin Trust Company, a local community bank with locations serving northern Maine and the greater Bangor and Portland regions.

New Ventures Maine is a statewide program of the University of Maine at Augusta, University of Maine System, and provides free classes and individual coaching in the areas of career planning, entrepreneurship, and money management.