September Grant Giveaway! It's a chicken FRENZY!!!

We decided to have a little fun with our grant giveaway this month by mixing it up a little bit! We made an Ordinary Hero goal of selling 200 chickens over 5 days to fill a chicken coop for an orphanage in Ethiopia! While we didn't quite reach our goal, we were BLOWN AWAY by how many we did sell. 122 CHICKENS!!! That will fill an awful lot of bellies! A HUGE thank you to our affiliates who helped get us there, and to everyone that purchased on behalf of our affiliates! You're generosity is appreciated!!!


SO..... Who were our top selling affiliates????

Congratulations to our TOP SELLING affiliate,  Jennifer Hanson! She earned herself the $500 grant PLUS the $100 bonus for selling the most chickens!!! Way to go, Jennifer! This is not the first time she has won one of our grants. You can read about her story here, but this month she wanted to share how she seems to have found success in our grant giveaways, and hopefully encourage others to try. Here's what she had to say:

       "I have to say that I'm not sure we were so much in the hunt for the grant money this time around and as we were slightly obsessed with getting as many of these chickens for the orphanage as possible.  The grant contest started on Sammy's 4th birthday and I felt God telling my heart that it was time to go to work, to use his birthday for a purpose, and to rally others around this chicken drive.  It was incredibly amazing to watch what happened.  One person purchased 8 chickens, than told their employer about this need, and their company matched her 8 chickens!  CRAZY!  We had people who regularly support our family buying chickens, and people I haven't had much contact with in years buying chickens!  I spent a lot of time on Facebook and created a BINGO type card with different categories (i.e. - A member of our wedding party, grandparent/relative, high school dance friend, pageant friend, bible study friend, etc...) and reached out to those specific groups searching for a person to buy a chicken so I could mark the spot off my 'Chicken Bingo Card':).  Perhaps the most touching purchase was one done by an old friend of mine in honor of my father, who passed away 4 years ago, to fill in the grandparent box.  I didn't expect to spend so much time crying the last 5 days as we rallied people for chickens:).

Our family set a goal of selling 40 chickens and more than doubled that goal...we were blown away!   The money for our account is truly just an after thought, but we are GRATEFUL!  I think I'm just focused on trying to figure out how to get the remaining chickens:)"

Congratulations to our second place affiliate, Allie Hoistad! She earned herself our $300 grant to put towards her upcoming mission trip to Ethiopia! She is heading to Ethiopia with Ordinary Hero in March of 2014, going with a group from Calvary Lutheran Church in Grand Forks, ND. She has been on many mission trips before, but this will be her first out of the country, and she says she knows God has great things in store for her! She is feeling so blessed by the generosity of her family and friends and with the opportunity to fundraise with OH! 

And... last, but not least, Congratulations to Ashley Rippke! She is the recipient of our $100 grant! She and Nate,her husband, are fundraising for their second adoption! They have a 4 yr. old daughter from Ethiopia who has been home for 10 months and are in process of adopting a 3 yr old boy through Adoption Advocates. Her blog can be found here.

Again... a HUGE congratulations to all of our winners! Way to rally your friends and family for a great cause for you AND for Ordinary Hero!!!

You all earned some great commission during this contest. Many thank you's go out to all our affiliates for participating in this grant giveaway!! Also, many thank you's go out to all of you who purchased on behalf of our affiliates. Every single purchase credited to our affiliates puts money into their account which will be applied toward their adoption or mission trip. I have been on their side of fundraising with my own adoption before, so trust me when I say, it is GREATLY appreciated!!

Be ready for our next grant giveaway scheduled to start Thursday, October 10 and run through Tuesday, October 15. Yep, 3 more grants will be given away to our TOP 3 AFFILIATES with the highest sales ($ amount) credited to their name during that time period. So if you are adopting or  raising money for a mission trip, be sure to get signed up as an OH affiliate. Just spread the word and you could win a grant!! This is a great time to start your early Christmas shopping!