Help a Local Student

[de784]

Dear Friends,
Our son, Andy Bell (a junior at Sussex Technical High School in Georgetown, DE), has qualified (by his academics and community service), to be part of an on-line $20,000 scholarship competition called March Madness, offered by a company called Zinch. Zinch is an organization that has a website that high school students and colleges use to find and recruit each other. Zinch offers several scholarships and the one Andy is in is one of them. The way a student wins is to get the most votes each week, moving up to new competition until finally it's between 2 students.

He was also in this contest last year but lost by 114 votes in one of the later rounds. We were totally overwhelmed by the support we received from people all over the country and saw the value of each person's vote. My e-mail program will only let me send out so many e-mails a day so our problem was we had a limit to how many people we could contact and I think that is why he lost. By that time, we were e-mailing complete strangers asking them to vote for him if they thought him deserving (you can read his profile which briefly describes him on the website). Zinch had a lot more information than is shown to make their decisions on the 1,700 kids in the nation who qualified. We feel honored that Andy was chosen. He is a junior at Sussex Technical High School in Georgetown, DE.

We learned last year that we cannot do this by ourselves. We really need a team of people who will get on board with us to forward our e-mails out to everyone they can and ask them to do the same. It helps when forwarding, to let the people you are forwarding to, know how you know Andy or us or that you got the e-mail from a friend and it is a for-real opportunity for a for-real deserving kid. We are not members of facebook or other on-line forums but if any of you can use your contacts on there to help spread the word, we would sincerely appreciate it. Everyone is skeptical about companies getting their e-mail addresses but I can assure you that last year, no one reported that Zinch did anything bad with their information. This is a real scholarship and we are trying very hard to help our son win it so his dream of going to college can come true. He wishes to be a pharmacist.

This year, in order to vote, Zinch is requiring that people go to their website and create a profile (which is really just your e-mail address, user name, and password) before you can vote. You must write down the user name and password you create so you can vote in future rounds. Each week he moves on, we hope that you will vote again and forward your e-mails, use facebook, etc. to keep him in the competition.

To create a profile:
Go to College Search - College Admissions - College and University Admissions - Zinch - Home
At the top, click on "Sign up"
Under the section "Who am I", click on college student, high school student, or other
Under the section "Basic", type in a user name and type in your e-mail address
Under "Password", choose a password and type it in again to confirm it
(be sure to record your user name and password somewhere so you can sign in to vote in future rounds)
Click on "Sign up"

To vote for Andy (remember you will need to vote after each deadline and they go by mountain standard time):
Click anywhere you see the words March Madness. It will take you to a place where you can choose a state. Choose Delaware, find Andy Bell and click on vote. The regional round will look different, I'm sure. There is a place where you can send him a message if you want to encourage him.

The competition has already begun and the timeline is below:
Timeline:
Start date is Feb 25th for state matchups and the winner will be announced Wednesday April 15th.
+ Feb 25th (9am MST) start state match ups to get into the regionals. Ends March 4th 1pm MST.
+ March 4th regional match ups to get into the field of 64. Ends March 11th 9am MST.
+ Round 1(field of 64) will start March 18th at 9am MST and end March 23rd 9am MST.
+ Round 2(32 remaining) starts March 23rd 1pm MST and ends March 27th 9am MST.
+ Round 3(sweet 16) starts March 27th 1pm MST and ends April 1st 9am MST.
+ Round 4 (elite 8) starts April 1st 1pm MST and ends April 6th 9am MST.
+ Final Four starts April 6th 1pm MST and ends April 10th 9am MST.
+ The Championship is from April 10th 1pm MST and ends April 15th 12pm MST.

We are very grateful to anyone that can help us in this endeavor. We will need all the help we can get every week!!! For as long as he is in the competition, I plan to send an updated e-mail each week to everyone in my address book.

So please create a profile on College Search - College Admissions - College and University Admissions - Zinch - Home and vote for Andy Bell in Delaware, forward the e-mails to your world, and use facebook or whatever means you have to help. If you have any questions or prefer not to receive these e-mails during "our" competition, please e-mail me at karenlbell@hotmail.com. By the way, check out the other great kids in other states and vote for who you think most deserving. Last year, it turned out to be a lot of fun watching the competition and voting and rooting for certain students. Very sad when we were out of it though.

Thanks for your help,
Karen Bell