Haystacks Help Pennsylvania Adventist School Win $30,000
From ANN, December 23, 2015: On December 17, Mountain View Christian School in Williamsport, Pennsylvania received a $30,000 check from the Uncle Ben’s Beginners contest—thanks to a video about haystacks (a meal resembling a taco salad).
The Fulmer family celebrates the school winning $30,000 from Uncle Ben’s. Credit: ANN/Tamyra Horst, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
Third grader Jackson Fulmer and his family created a video demonstrating how to make his favorite meal, haystacks. They entered it into the cooking video contest. The video, “The Adventures of Uncle Ben Boy,” shows how to make haystacks, a beloved meal of many American Seventh-day Adventists. After being selected as one of 25 finalists, the video was chosen to be among the top five videos with the most votes, making it a grand prize winner.
Jackson, his siblings, Harrison and Waverly, and his mom, April, appeared in the video; and his dad, Jeff, filmed and edited. As Jeff was driving home from work the Friday before the submission deadline, he says the idea just “popped into his head and he had a plan for what they would do.”
April says, “We feel like it was divine inspiration to have this opportunity for the school.”
Local news, and several Adventist organizations, shared the video and encouraged people to vote for Jackson.
“I was on TV a lot, in the news and on the radio,” shares Jackson. “I knew I was going to win. I had a dream about it. … [But] I had to wait and wait and wait [for the results].”
Jackson found out he won on December 10, but kept it a secret from his classmates until the 17th, when they were surprised by a visit from Mars Food representatives, Pennsylvania Conference officials and the mayor of South Williamsport. Representatives from Mars, the parent company of Uncle Ben’s, presented the school with a $30,000 check.
Jackson shares that he and his classmates originally wanted to buy an ice cream machine for the school, but decided a smoothie machine would be a healthier option.
April says they would like to see the money used to help create a separate eating room for the 15 students at the school. The students currently eat and play in an all-purpose room.
“We couldn’t have done it without everyone faithfully voting for us,” says April. “It’s been so neat to see our Adventist community rallying behind him. It has been amazing.”
See the video here.
Adventist News Network (ANN) is the official news service of the denomination’s world headquarters in Washington, DC.
Good for him. He also received a check for $15,000.
Uncle Ben’s is owned by Mars candy, a partner of Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway. Mr. Buffet gives the proceeds from his annual “lunch with Buffet” auction to Glide Memorial church in SF, usually a donation in the 2-3 million $ range.
I may have never eaten a haystack but I tried Big Frank corn dogs at campmeeting many years ago. I guess SDA cuisine is something a person must be raised with to really enjoy. I prefer buddhist vegetarian cuisine.
This topic is especially relevant in light of a chapter EGW penned entitled “The Wealth of the Gentiles”. According to her understanding, it was God’s plan that the gospel work would make good impression upon wealthy people in the world who would in turn, donate their riches to the gospel cause. In the case of Glide, Buffet was impressed enough to donate a few million every year to the church.
The Hollywood SDA church has been more or less an embarrassment to the denomination for decades. With a prime location and unique building, it is strategically located to have been a resource for the AIDS community during the darker days of that plague. I recollect that it had, instead, been more or less over run by Asian immigrants and was virtually irrelevant in a city where it should have been a beacon of light to the world. ICOC had a meeting place within walking distance that was filled to capacity with indigenous youth from all over So. Cal.
David Geffen, a long time Hollywood personality, gave hundreds of millions of $ to UCLA medical school. God may have earmarked a portion of that donation for Hollywood SDA, had it risen to the challenge of AIDS in its midst but it didn’t happen. That $30,000 might have well been, should have been, $30 million.