Every Vote Counts!

So, I must admit that I’ve been meaning to start a blog for quite a while now.  I suppose this whole New York City Glamour experience is as good an excuse as any so here goes nothin’!  Just to warn you, this first blog post may be a bit wordy but I’m hoping to refine my blogging skills and get better at getting to the point in a few less words :) But for now I’m just going to dive in….

It all starts, at least for me, back in late November 2011.  It was then that I received an email from Lorraine Nunez, the beauty merchandising manager for Glamour magazine.  She was asking for a little more information about me and Reason2Smile Inc before the semi-finalists for the 2012 “Best of You” contest were chosen.  I gladly provided her with the information and then quickly called up Donna Rosenblum, a Reason2Smile board member and the person who Lorraine told me had nominated me for the award.  At this point I was just psyched that Donna had nominated me and even more psyched that I was a potential semi-finalist for the contest!

Donna and her son Ryan after they shaved their heads as a fundraiser for St. Baldrick's Children's Hospital.

Days past and I must say that I forgot all about the contest.  That is until mid-December… I was visiting Donna and her family for a week of presentations in their area on Long Island and a Reason2Smile Art Show in their public library.  It was then that I received an email from Lorraine saying that I was a semi-finalist in the 2012 “Best of You” contest!!

Okay, yeah you see… this is why it takes me hours to write a blog post.  I’m ridiculous about having to share every last detail!  You’re probably bored out of your mind already.  So sorry… hang in there!  It will get more exciting, I promise!

The Sally Hansen “Best of You” contest has been taking place for 12 years.  It is a contest which celebrates women who are making a difference in the world and who are an inspiration to others.  Apparently thousands of women are nominated every year and then the folks at Glamour and Sally Hansen pare it down to ten semi-finalists.  These ten women are profiled on the Glam Alert website and the general public are given an opportunity to cast their votes on which woman they think most deserves the award.  (Let me just say that all 10 women’s profiles sounded inspiring and I don’t know how anyone could pick just one of them!) 

Voting takes place for a couple of weeks and this is when you all were SO INCREDIBLY supportive of me and Reason2Smile!  Not only did you vote but you also passed the link on to your family, friends, and neighbors and encouraged them to vote!  Schools that I have spoken at passed the link around and had all the teachers, faculty, and staff members vote.  Wells College, my alma mater, sent the link around to not only the current students, faculty, and staff but also to all the alums! 

My favorite voting story is of a little girl in my mom’s fourth grade class.  My mom shared the excitement of the contest with her students and gave them each the link so they could go home and ask their parents to vote.  (You must know that on the voting website we were listed alphabetically and each woman had a number – based on the order – next to the button where you vote.)  One little girl came back the next day and said, “When we went to vote it said that Keela only had two votes so I’m really glad that my mom voted because she’s going to need more than two votes to win!” :)  So darn cute!

After driving you all crazy with 80 bazillion Facebook postings and emails about voting, the polls closed and the following 2 ½ weeks went by painfully slowly.  On Wednesday March 7^th, a normal day in the Reason2Smile office… emails being answered, thank you notes being written… I received an email from Lorraine saying, “Hi Keela, CONGRATULATIONS!!”  I didn’t need to read any farther, my heart skipped a beat and my jaw quite literally dropped.  I must have read the email three times before it really set in.  Then the phone calls, texts, emails, and Facebook postings started… first to mom, then dad, then Donna, and on from there… 

I absolutely LOVED how excited you all were for the organization and me!  I can’t tell you the number of people who told me, “I’ve voted for people I know in contests in the past but no one has ever won!  It’s so good to see my vote helped!”  It truly was like each and every one of you had won along with me!  I hope you felt that way too because I certainly couldn’t have done it without each of you voting and spreading the word to others!  And of course, the most important winners are the children in developing countries who we haven’t even met yet but who we will be able to help once this goes national and more people start getting involved – yes, I’m an optimist!!

During the days that followed I received emails, posts, and phone calls from you all congratulating me.  I felt SO loved!!  I walked around town and people literally called out from the other side of the street, “Hey, there's our Glamour girl!!”  It’s amazing how wonderful it feels to live in a small town where everyone knows you personally and they share their support in every way, shape, and form.  Thank you!!

Okay, so here I am… nearly 1,000 words in and I haven’t even gotten to the actual trip to NYC yet!  Not only that but I really do need to wrap things up for the night. This is a good start though and I hope you haven’t lost interest because the next section will be all about NYC and the actual photo shoot… I promise!