The Contest 2011: Prizing
The Tomato Nation Contest isn’t just about raising a big heap o’ money for public schools and feeling the warming glow of good deeds, ohhhh no. It’s also about loot — lots and lots of loot! Even a teensy donation makes you eligible for any and all of these fabulous gifts!
The current list of prizes is below. I’ll continue adding to it as we go along; thanks so much to all our super-generous prize donors to date! It’s not too late to become one yourself, if you’d like, so please do email me at bunting at tomatonation dot com if you’ve got gift certificates, crafts, or anything else you’d like to contribute. Thanks!
updated 6 May
- hammered copper, sterling, and black lava stone earrings; each pair comes with a packet of Cadbury mini eggs (Kimberley N.)
- four (4) all-access passes to Chicago’s Field Museum (Beth G.)
- vintage-book cards (Beth G.)
- two (2) tickets to a regular-season performance by Washington, DC’s Shakespeare Theater Company (Sarah P.)
- (5) lolly packs from This Charming Candy (Kate ‘n’ Susan)
- a handmade tomato pillow; three (3) homemade cat toys, custom-designed for the winner (Sara T.)
- a $25 Carrabba’s gift certificate (Joan S.)
- a $25 Cinemark gift certificate to Cinemark (Joan S.)
- beaucoup gift cards to Old Navy ($25), Home Depot ($25), and Barnes & Noble ($50) (Megan J.)
- a selection of vintage books (Kate M.)
- a Kindle (Joan S.)
- $100 Best Buy gift cards, and a Container Store wine tote (the fine folks at DC HQ)
- a Library of America edition of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Little Men, and Jo’s Boys (Laura G.)
- tomato pendants (Janalyn M.)
- a $25 Bells and Unicorns gift card (Sally S.)
- two (2) $50 gift certificates to ZozoBugBaby (Charmaine P. and Julie)
- two (2) $25 gift certificates to kiva.org (Charmaine P.)
- a signed copy of The Kitchen Daughter by the author (Jael M.)
- three (3) signed copies of Going In Circles, our very first TN Read-Along book (Pamie)
- an old-timey video of Cal in the baby clothing you select, a la “Purr Your Request” (Pamie)
- free logo and/or business-card design, up to 6 hours of work (Linda G.)
- a Nuxie Made hat, your choice of style and size (Melissa)
- one copy each of Civilization 4 Complete, Civilization Revolution for XBox, and Civilization 5 (Lisa M.)
- six (6) handmade quilled cards, winner’s choice of design (Morgan C.)
- a custom math-joke ringer t-shirt (Julia C.)
- three (3) sea-glass pendants and one sea-glass earring set (Ellen B.)
- five books Megan C. has enjoyed: Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (Sandel), Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (Demick), NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children (Bronson & Merriman), The Cartoon Guide to Economics: Volume One, Microeconomics (Bauman), and Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy (Thorne)
- 2 vouchers to a CT Roller Girls bout (Amie A.)
- 3 handmade wallets (Alicia M.)
- a copy of the book Teach Yourself Visually: Crocheting, along with an assortment of crochet hooks and enough yarn to make the Simple Sampler Scarf pattern (think of it as a “learn-to-crochet kit”) (Molly M.)
- an afghan that will look a lot like this one (Molly M.)
- a handmade owl pendant (Lua T.)
- one private-commission/custom art work, in a nine-by-six-inch format — style TBD by winner (Katy D.)
- two (2) tickets to a show at the North Carolina Stage Company, a professional Equity theatre located in downtown Asheville, NC (Angie F.)
- two (2) DC Comics packs — a trade paperback or two, plus various single-issue titles (Liz G.)
- a set of 21 Jump Street S1 DVDs (Cyd B.)
…and the usual assortment of Amazon and iTunes gift cards, random DVDs, t-shirts, books, candy, novelties, novelty candy, random novelty-candy t-shirts…you get the idea.
How do we register for the loot after we’ve donated?
I believe it’s all automatic this year, but don’t worry — there will be instructions/explanations for everything shortly.
Sars;
Hows the prizing for giving pages going to work? Not that I’m in the hunt, or anything, and not that that is the point (my giving page made me cry tears of joy yesterday, which is the point) but just curious…..
Giving Pages will have the opportunity to win various extras, based on metrics like which page adds the most donors in one day, raises the most money in one day, etc. The GP prizing doesn’t come out of the general-donor prize pool, but general donors are eligible for prizes just by donating/existing; Giving Pages will require a nominal effort to win stuff.
I’ll also be highlighting various different GPs throughout the contest, so if you want to form one but you’re worried you won’t have enough juice to get much done, email me and ask for help. I encourage you also to not only compete with each other with these in a friendly, drunk-softball-game kind of way, but also talk to each other about what’s working for your Giving Pages and what’s not.
All of this will be explained as we go along, but becoming our own leaderboard and letting you put together the Giving Pages is primarily about customizing the project selection for you guys, so that it’s projects you’re specifically psyched about, and it’s easier for you to share with friends, family, DC newbies, et al.
Stay tuned; like I said, I’ll walk you through a lot of this as we go, but it’s not that much different from past years.
Thanks Sarah…I know the official contest is over, but my “Victory Garden” is still going strong – we are fast approaching $11,0000. It must be an Indian Summer here in Virginia!
I’ve donated every since you started this, but I’ve never completed a project before. I did this time, and I just got my thank you letters from the third graders whose project I supported, and I cried reading them. I didn’t expect to be so emotional, but I was completely bowled over. That’s the best prize I could ask for!