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Home » Donors Choose and Contests

Contest: Now What?

Submitted by on November 3, 2009 – 9:56 AM27 Comments

tomagto

First, we admire the crafty initiative of reader Deanna in dressing her own Miss Tomatohead up as a member of the nightshade family using only materials at hand.   Excellent use of green felt, young ladies.

Then, we U.S. citizens vote.   Remember this? Good times.   The prospect of freedom from Bloomberg’s campaign ads is not quite as exciting (and I know you Jersey voters feel me), but I’ll take it.   It’s your right: exercise it.

While you pull levers and admire infants, I will finish up the mini-prizing; make sure the main prizing page is up to date; and confer with Brrr It’s Cold In Here There Must Be Some Intern In The Atmosphere on the workflow.   And then I will begin notifying the winners.   So that the prizing phase does not extend into January as it did last year, I’ll have to tweak the process just a bit, but here’s what you need to know:

  • if you have not received a receipt from me, you are not entered in the drawing;
  • if you have received a bunch of receipts from me, you are entered in the drawing, but each individual is entered once, not multiple times (multiple receipts does not disqualify you, however);
  • if you won a mini-prize, you are still eligible for prizes from the main list;
  • when the main prizing phase begins, please make sure my domain is on your whitelist.

Winners will receive an email containing detailed instructions on how to claim prizes.   I will make an announcement here when the main prizing phase begins with a little more information on the logistics.   Until then, if you have any questions, please post them in the comments.

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27 Comments »

  • Alan Swann says:

    Great photo — cuteness and awesomeness together. Put a book in one of her hands and a baseball in the other, and you’d have TN in a nutshell.

  • Krissa says:

    Excuse me; I must nom some delicious Tomato Child thighs.

  • Alyson says:

    Miss Tomatohead seems to enjoy her costume! I see a creative kidlet on the make!

  • Vanessa H says:

    And Miss Tomatohead could adapt the outfit easily for use as a holiday elf! Creative, adorable, and thrifty!

    I came by today to see what the total project fulfillment came out to, knowing that at least one project that I had been following had gotten fully funded at the last minute. The last time I checked, it had a few hundred dollars to go. I checked a number of projects I had donated to and two others had also been completed. All by the anonymous donor when they were hundreds of dollars from fulfillment.

    Such a great birthday present!!! Now I’ll need to find new projects to support when I get the HP money.

    The Tomato Nation DC drive is so genuine and anti-cynical and it thaws my frozen insides a little. That’s a really cool thing you do, Sars, for all of us. So thanks.

  • robin says:

    Little Miss Tomatohead is a cutie. I wonder how she and your young Master S. would look together? And then add in the Grape Tomato for a full bushel of yummy.
    Did I mention ever that homegrown tomatoes (the real vegetable kind, I’m no cannibal!) are one of my favorite foods on earth?

  • mctwin says:

    Well, THIS TN-er wants to Zrrrrbbttttt that little toe-mah-toe’s belleh!! :p

  • Bronte says:

    @Alann Swann A book, a baseball, and a cat. Don’t forget the cats.

  • Cait says:

    Sooo, voting–I hope all you Mainers have had a chance to go out and defend marriage equality by voting NO on 1!

  • Deanna says:

    Aww, guys, thanks for the comments about my little tomato. Maybe she and the young Master can hoist a pint one day when they are both legal and commiserate over the ridiculous costumes their gleeful relatives foisted upon them.

    And since we’re originally from Maine, I second Cait on No on 1 and I know my family is doing likewise at the voting booth today.

  • Herschel says:

    nice try, sars — you’re not done yet! projects are still being funded over at dc. another $1,500 is in since you “called it.”

  • Margaret in CO says:

    I wanna foof* that tummy! What a darlin’! Awwww….

    (*foof = blow on a body part to make a farty sound.)

  • Gill says:

    Cutest tomato in the land. And also one trillion points to you Sars, for the most excellent intern movie name yet.

  • Sandman says:

    I have a hard time imagining that Tomatina (Miss Nightshade if you’re nasty) could ever want to disavow that picture – she looks so joyous.

  • Vanessa R. says:

    OMG! OMG! OMG! I don’t know what happened, but the Big Kahuna is fully funded!!!!!!!

    http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=279669&challengeid=24801

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    As a wise man once opined: holy shitballs! What happened?

  • LaSalleUGirl says:

    Go Bill Gates! I knew there had to be some reason to be a PC…

  • Sandman says:

    Is it possible that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made up the difference? Last time I looked, the Donor Matching Offer stood at about half the total project cost; I assumed this was the “Double Your Impact” aspect in action. But now the Donor Matching Offer line stands at $937, and there’s a comment from the Gates Foundation from a few hours ago. In conclusion, I dunno; and also my brain hurts. But, wow, so exciting for those kids!

  • Regina says:

    @Vanessa R. I saw that too and thought the same thing! I’m so excited for those kids.

  • Kim says:

    I just wanted to let you know I received a birthday GivingCard in the mail from DonorsChoose today. I am a teacher and have donated to several of my teacher friend’s proposals for their birthday or for other milestones they have reached in their careers. Inside the envelope, it says, Happy Birthday! This birthday GivingCard was covered by a partner of ours…when I used my GivingCard it gave credit to Tomato Nation! Way to go guys, your reach is even further than you expected. Thanks for all you have done and keep on doing…we can’t do it without you!

  • Stephanie says:

    I checked in on the Big Kahuna right after the Social Media Challenge ended, and the Partner Funding Offer that had been at $21,000+ had dropped down to $937 – the same amount that had been donated to the project at that point. I assume that partner offer only applied to Social Media Challenge donations.

    I had despaired, but had planned to advocate for the project here once our HP cards came in.

    I loved this project because, if something like this had been offered at my high school, I might have discovered much earlier that I wanted to be a doc-film editor, gone to a proper school that had a film program, and actually properly pursued that career goal. Instead, I ended up with a mass comm degree that didn’t give me specific-enough training for a competitive field and I ended up in a job that wasn’t what I wanted to be doing at all. I went back to grad school to become a teacher, which will be awesome when I can finally find a teaching job, so all’s well that ends well.

    Long story short, this project was near and dear to my heart, and I’m SO happy to see that it got funded. Yay Gates Foundation!

  • Kristen B says:

    I have nothing to add except ….aaeeeeeiiiiiii! teh Cuteness! it burns! It burns us, precious! (heh) Ok, not really. But that it a mighty cute baby.

  • Carolyn in CT says:

    I just Bet Red with my first credits from the automatic monthly donation. The goodfeelingness continues.

  • shanchan says:

    My first credit just showed up as well! However, still waiting on the $50 bonus credit for signing up for the automatic donation- anyone else? I hate to bother the DC people if they’re still busy sorting through everything from October and I should just be patient…

  • shanchan says:

    Speak of the devil, it arrived this morning! On to the spreadsheet to find a soon-to-expire project, whee!

  • Sandman says:

    Yup – my giftcard for the automatic donation turned up today. So excited to get spendy with it!

  • June says:

    Just spent my $100 HP giftcard thingy. Whee! This one
    http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=298135
    needs less than $100 if anyone is lookin’ for a project to finish off.

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