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Home » Donors Choose and Contests

TN Fall Contest: …Whoa.

Submitted by on October 1, 2007 – 7:53 PM30 Comments

As of this writing: 37 percent.

(When I started writing the post? 36 percent. I love it when that happens.)

A few administrative notes….

1. Check out the leaderboard. Words fail me.

2. The following people need to stop apologizing for “only” donating $10 or $25 or whatever: everyone who apologized. Seriously. You donated something; that’s the point. The difference may seem negligible to you, but it isn’t — it’s still a difference; that’s the point. All the “sorry it’s only ten bucks”es added together = tomato-costume horror/fun times.

You want to apologize for something? Apologize for “making” me choose which boots go best with red tights.

3. Hip hip Oort-ay (…sorry!), the Oort project is completed! One “lucky” “winner” will receive a Space Camp DVD! (“Second prize is TWO Space Camp DVDs!” Just kidding, Tate Donovan is hot in that movie.)

4. Can bowling teach math skills? It didn’t help me much as a kid but maybe this nice arts teacher will have better luck. Let’s find out.

In short: your awesomeness continues to reign supreme.

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30 Comments »

  • fred wilson says:

    i can’t compete with you and its killing me and making me smile a mile wide at the same time thinking about all the kids we are helping

  • Meg says:

    I’ve been looking at the leaderboard all day and I think maybe I need to go bowling, because Martha Wells Literacy Challenge has numbers that I don’t understand at all. Not that I’m trying to take anything away from the other projects or children, I’m just truly confused. Although, I will admit to being happy that you’ve/we’ve surpassed them and now have the lead in all three categories. I don’t want you to miss out on your lunch with Jerry Yang. I also think it is really great that they are using your site and dedication as inspiration to others.

    And I’m seeing green elf boots. With bells.

  • Sars says:

    Fred! Welcome! Congratulations on also being awesome. Maybe if you threatened to shave your head?

    But: you could compete with ME no problem. It’s my readers running through projects like koalas through eucalyptus. I just post links.

  • Mrs. B from Summit Elementary says:

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Donors Choose is a wonderful resource for teachers. I am a teacher and have been lucky enough to receive funding for a few projects. You don’t know how much it helps. I would love it if you had the chance to add “Materials For Learners With Special Needs,” ID #103734. Thanks again from teachers everywhere!

  • Shanchan says:

    Dumb question- anyone know what the lag time for the confirmation emails are? I donated this morning and still haven’t gotten one. I’m concerned that my credit card was rejected or something (I checked my spam folder and nothing is there). Should I just be more patient? (Or direct my question to donorschoose? I didn’t want to bug them if it just takes a while.)

  • Jennifer says:

    As of 8:13pm CST, 42%. You’re definitely going to need some more projects, m’dear, because you’re about to run out!!!

    I can’t wait to hear what the fine folks who share your office floor are going to have to say about your fashion choices. :-D

  • Nomie says:

    Damn. The two projects I wanted to donate to – the Iliad/Odyssey and the one in my town – are both fully funded. I was just waiting till payday! At this rate I’m gonna be throwing money at the matching-donations portion. Not like that matters. Oh man. I can’t get over this. WOW.

  • Kelly Underwood says:

    OK. I check the site before I Paypal Sars and the thermometer is at 42%. On a whim I go back less than 20 minutes later and it is at 48%.

  • Camelama says:

    ok, how much do I love Tomato Nation readers? I logged in, saw that “Dirt is Important!” needed about 50% funding, but by the time I’d typed in all my info, “Dirt is Important” was 100% funded.

    DIRT IS IMPORTANT! Hee. Tomato Nation readers are so fricking cool.

  • Sars says:

    …49%.

  • Karen says:

    I want to see it hit 50% in the first day… It’s 10:25pm on the East Coast, so there’s still plenty of time to see it happen.

    How freaking awesome.

  • A^3 says:

    I’ve been refreshing the page every few minutes to see it get to 50%

  • Sars says:

    I just shoveled in some money from the fine folks in our PayPal contingent; let’s see if that puts it over.

  • Karen says:

    There it goes… 50%. Holy crap.

  • Jaime says:

    50%!! In under 24 hours! That is so awesome!

  • Jenn says:

    Shanchan, I had the same problem. Go to the help page and click on “I did not receive a copy of my donation receipt for tax purposes…” and they’ll send you another one.

  • Kelly Underwood says:

    And now we’re at 50%

  • Anne-Cara says:

    It’s officially at 50% now :)

  • Yet Another Sarah says:

    Hello – since you will OBVIOUSLY have to pick a million more projects, please stock up on a few more in California, pretty please. Bless you and all of the readers!

  • FloridaErin says:

    52%!!

    I’m absolutely donating to the printer/copier/scanner for autistic students. I’m doing my grad degree in school psych and she’s absolutely right that her workbooks need to be in color.

    This is such an awesome challenge! :-D

  • m.giant says:

    Shanchan

    We received our confirmation e-mails right away, so you might want to be worried. You could always drop them a quick e-mail.

  • Jade says:

    Wow 53%… that’s impressive.

    Unfortunately I don’t think you can donate to this project from the Land Down Under… otherwise i’d send something.

    But it looks like you guys are doing fine without me.

  • Sars says:

    …53%.

  • Hammi says:

    53% on the first day. You’re going to be in that tomato suit before the end of the week.

  • SaraJ says:

    Jade–I’ve heard from several people that if you’re using a credit card, if you put your city, country and post code in the city box, and use NY as the state and 00000 as the zip, it works. Though they were in France and Canada. Hope that helps! Also, yay 53%

  • KO says:

    …54%

  • Ruby says:

    54% and it’s still Monday here.

  • alivicwil says:

    Jade – SaraJ’s right…
    put in all your regular details, but pick New York as your state.

    works fine. (I’m in NSW… I donated last year, too)

  • Charlotte says:

    Hi Meg, just wanted to respond to your question about the literacy challenge. It was inadvertently entered into the Blogger Challenge because it has been a successful long-running challenge on our leaderboards (with many funded proposals that have since been removed from the challenge page) and was still receiving donations at the time the Blogger Challenge launched. We contacted the owner, and the challenge has been removed at the owner’s request.

  • Meg says:

    Thanks for the info, Charlotte. I really wasn’t trying to have them removed, I was just confused by the numbers and only looked at them because they were ahead of TN in one category, for some time, and I was trying to figure out how much TN would need to come out in the lead. Anyway, I feel like a Scrooge-like schmuck now, but I do appreciate you taking time to respond.

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