The last few weeks, me and a few other instrumental parents at Mason's school were working really hard to win the Uncle Ben's contest that consisted of $30,000 for a new kitchen at the school. Alta Vista School has a room that is called the kitchen, but there is no stove or oven to cook with. They have a counter and a sink, that's about it. The contest consisted of making videos of kids in the kitchen with a parent cooking a recipe that included Uncle Ben's rice. We did lots of those and once we were on the leader-board, we realized we were being miscategorized as a medium sized school when we are actually a small sized school. I wrote to the powers-that-be and got it corrected and we sat in first place until the final day. With just hours left in the contest, the leader in the medium sized school apparently was miscategorized, too, and they then moved over to our small category and took first place. We were not resting on our laurels, we were still filming, editing and entering all the kids we could get, but they moved over with 50 entries to our 32 - with just 6 hours and only me filming and editing and uploading to the contest site, we just couldn't catch up. Now that it's official we will not be the recipients of this much needed money, we are back to fund-raising the old fashioned way. That's not all bad and the Uncle Ben's contest is still running for the individual entrants - if Mason is a finalist, he will win $10,000 for his school and a bit of cash for himself, too. There is a voting component but I am not sure what the terms of the vote will be. I know people can vote once every 24 hours, but what I don't know is if we can vote without giving up all of our privacy via Facebook to make that vote happen. The good news is, the public vote component is only 20% of the criteria to win. Who knows?! In any case, Mason and I are moving forward with the other fundraisers we had already planned. Stay tuned for the details, there just might be something worthwhile in it for you!
On a brighter and more fun note, Mason and I entered a scarecrow contest on Sunday morning and my entry took 2nd place ($100) and Mason was the only kid to enter, but he did not build a traditional scarecrow so they gave him the 3rd place prize of $50 for showing up and participating. You can see pictures of our entries at www.mondaymotivator.blogspot.com. Oddly enough, I didn't build a traditional scarecrow either but I still won 2nd place. I think he should have won first place, but that's just my two-cents - and he ended up with $50 he didn't have before!
Now Mason is at culinary school and I am working from a Starbucks down the road. I would much rather be napping. Instead, I'm looking for awesome ideas to raise the money we need for the Alta Vista kitchen. I want to do things that the kids can participate in, too. If you have suggestions, please send them my way! Now I'm ready to call the Monday done, yeah, I know, it's still early, but I'm ready for a new day. Have a great week!
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