The winners are in! The grand prize winner is Mary Jane Montoya of Fresno California, pictured below. I don't know if she's as cute as our baby, but she is pretty darn cute. Here is the official Gerber site, although they make you go to facebook to see the picture.
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| Mary Jane |
- Birth+: Phoenix Molina, who loves to eat peaches, from Sacramento, Calif.
- Supported Sitter: Justin Ridzon, who loves to eat apples, from Lowell, Mass.
- Sitter: Jax Schuster, who loves to eat squash, from Lebanon, Ind.
- Crawler: Londyn Ridley, who loves to eat bananas, from Millsboro, Del.
- Toddler: Jaiden Davidson, who loves to eat bananas, from Petersburg, Va.
- Preschooler: Johnathon Cahill, who loves to eat apples, from Mastic Beach, N.Y.
The Gerber competition delayed announcement of the 2012 winners due to hurricane Sandy. They will announce the winners on November 6th. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you haven't been notified by now your child probably isn't a winner. Although delaying the announcement could mean the decision isn't made yet, the rules specify a process of contacting the winners and choosing a new winner if they cannot be reached. I've been answering all the suspected telemarketer calls since September 25th in the hopes that it'll be Gerber to no avail; I have little hope that our baby is a winner. Below you can read some information about the contest (and scheming of mine) from a time when hope was still alive.
We've entered baby in the Gerber Generation Photo Search competition. There's a $50,000 cash prize for one baby, determined by Gerber. There's also a milestone prize, a $10,000 scholarship. This part of the contest started September 4th, and you can vote every day until September 24th. Six babies, one from each milestone category, will win a $10,000 Gerber life college scholarship based on people's votes on facebook. This is a contest that Gerber runs every year, and I'm sure I remember seeing friends on facebook asking for votes in years past. It's too late to enter this year, but if you have a child that will still fall under the milestone categories I would consider entering it for next year. The milestone categories are: Birth+, Supported Sitter, Sitter, Crawler, Toddler, and Preschooler. Our baby fits under the category of supported sitter. Here's the Gerber press release about the competition.
It doesn't seem possible to see how many votes a child has in the contest. Many people are asking, how can I see how many votes my baby has? I haven't found a real answer to this, but I've looked in so many places and as the parent who entered my child in the contest I would think I would be the first one with access to that information. We'll just have to trust in the system and when the contest is over find out if baby won or not.
According to Gerber's rules for the contest, "the potential Grand Award recipient will be notified via phone, mail, or email on or about September 25, 2012." The facebook page now says to check back on November 1st to see "which ones you and the judges selected," presumably that's when the milestone and grand prize winners will be announced to the public. I could only find the official rules in a mobile format.
If you'd like to see a picture of our baby and vote for him in the contest, please sign into facebook and visit https://apps.facebook.com/gerberps/detail.do?entry_id=412952. We'll take as many votes as we can, I appreciate your help. College is a scarily expensive proposition, and although $10,000 probably won't get very far in 18 years I'm willing to give it a try. I'll make a deal with you: if your child is also in the Gerber contest (and not in the supported sitter category), post a link in the comment section below and I will vote for your child. Please vote for our baby too!
There are some pitfalls to avoid when entering your child in a contest, especially online. This is the first time I've done it, and Gerber is a well known company so the experience has been a good one. The prizes are real and I haven't gotten outrageous spam, junk e-mails, or crazy stuff posted to my facebook wall since entering. This is not the case, however, for a friend who signed up for another contest after missing the Gerber submission deadline.
When you search Google for the Gerber contest several other baby photo contests also come up, and many are tricked into entering them not realizing that they painting a huge telemarketer bull's-eye on themselves in the process. I saw my friend's post, and wanted to vote for her child. The site required that you register in order to vote, but I'm experienced with such matters. I keep an extra e-mail address or two for entering contests or times when I think my information is going to be sold to mailing lists. This was absolutely one of those times, so I filled out the registration information and clicked proceed, but then screen after screen of special offers and ads came up. Each page had a "skip offer" option, and finally after skipping about 8 offers it allowed me to vote. They wanted my phone number, and when I gave them my house phone instead of the cell an error message told me it HAD to be a cell phone. Red flags and alarms were going off like crazy in my head at this point, so I closed the window and stopped wherever I was. I'm pretty sure that I voted, but they made you jump through so many hoops that I really can't be 100% certain my vote registered.
The point is this: be careful what you sign up for. There are a lot of internet scams out there, and my friend very innocently wanted to enter her child in what looked like a legitimate contest. I'm sure someone does win the $2,500 cash prize her contest advertised, but the number of mailing lists she ended up on as a result is anyone's guess. She sent me a message the next day apologizing if someone from "allaboutbaby" calls me, because so far that day she'd received three calls from them.
The Gerber contest is a legitimate contest run by a well-established company. Say what you will about sugar content and giving your baby processed foods, but at least I know my name isn't on a thousand mailing lists for the rest of my life. If you don't know the company running the contest or there are lots of special offers and ads to skip, it's probably best to skip that contest altogether.
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