Habitat for Humanity of Madison and Clark Counties is asking for the community’s help to earn a $25,000 grant to support the Lincoln Street rehabilitation project in Clark County.

Russ Barclay, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Madison and Clark Counties, said the nonprofit agency was one of 200 community causes selected from 2,000 applicants for a State Farm Neighborhood Assist grant.

“Our grant application was focused on the Lincoln Street rehabilitation project we’re doing in partnership with the city of Winchester and urban development,” Barclay said. “Our application was selected in the top 200 and now we’re competing for a grant.”

Barclay said the top 40 competitors will receive a $25,000 grant for their projects based on number of votes received online. As of 4 p.m. Monday, the project was ranked 44th.

Votes can be cast for the Lincoln Street project at neighborhoodassist.com/entry/2012044. Voting is open through Friday, and each person can vote 10 times daily for the project.

“The website even makes it easy for you to batch all 10 votes into one click,” Barclay said. “The first time it takes about a minute and a half to register then after that, it takes about 15 seconds a day to vote. In just that few seconds voters can have a tremendous, transformative impact on the community and five families.”

Barclay said Habitat’s role in the project will be to built decent, affordable housing for five local families, and the $25,000 grant would go towards construction, home ownership classes and breaking ground on the homes.

“The city of Winchester invited us to be the home ownership partner on this rehab project,” Barclay said. “The redevelopment project will widen the road to a standard two-way road and upgrade all the existing utilities, including water, sewer, sidewalks and street lighting.

“When that is done, Habitat will be given five lots to build with local families.”

Barclay said community support has been good so far.

“When voting opened last week, we were at about 80,” he said. “Since then we’ve surged to between 33 and 45,” he said.

The leaderboard can be viewed at neighborhoodassist.com until midnight Thursday.

“As voting continues Friday, we won’t be able to tell who is in the leaderboard,” he said. “We won’t know until later in September if we’ve won or not.

“It’s just really important that folks vote every day to support the project. We need people to go back on a daily basis and use all 10 votes.”