Sunflower Seeds Video Contest Winner Awarded $10,000 Prize and Donates It All to Build Baseball Fields for Kids

Bismark, ND, July 10, 2007 --(PR.com)-- A viral video contest sponsored by the National Sunflower Association (NSA) turned into a field of dreams for the grand prize winner Dan Cunliffe II and the small community of Minot, Maine. Cunliffe will donate his $10,000 prize to the Minot-Hebron Athletic field, which has been a work in progress for the last few years.

As the owner of a Sports Card Hobby Store, Republic Jewelry & Collectibles in Auburn, Cunliffe has strong ties with the local sports community. He has helped run the Pepsi Pitch Hit and Run events for numerous years, has sponsored baseball teams, advertised his hobby store at area baseball fields and held ten free autograph sessions with sports celebrities over the years including such stars as Dennis Eckersley, Dwight Evans and Bill Walton. His store was also named best hobby shop in the country for two consecutive years.

Cunliffe entered his video, "Kids Grab ‘Em," featuring his four kids catching sacks of seeds in their baseball gloves, hoping he’d grab the grand prize so he could donate it to the development of a much-needed regulation-size baseball field for the kids. Volunteers from the small communities of Minot and Hebron have donated over 800 hours of time and contributed over $45,000 in donated equipment, materials and labor.

"Many hardworking volunteers have donated tons of labor and time towards building a new regulation size baseball field for our community’s kids," says Cunliffe. "To have money to put toward it is such a blessing."

"We couldn’t be happier with how this contest ended and are thrilled that Dan is putting his prize towards such a good cause. Baseball and sunflower seeds are synonymous, and this is a perfect ending to our contest," says John Sandbakken, NSA international marketing manager.

Contest facts:

55 videos were submitted over the course of the contest

115,000 views were logged during the grand prize voting week

More than 257,000 views were logged during the course of the contest

Qualifying videos were two minutes or less in length and promoted sunflower seeds by leveraging the theme, "grab ‘em by the sack." Contestants had to be 18 or older and all video submissions were screened.

For more information and to review the contest rules visit www.grabembythesack.com/

###