Video Contest Hub
The Intersection of
Video & Opportunity

Caleb Shreve, from Loan Oak Texas won $25,000 from Upromise Tuition Tales video contest. He’s currently a junior in high school, but the money he earned will be applied to his college education at the University for North Texas. This is big help to his parents since he comes from a family for five!  He spoke with VidOpp about his big win.

His mom, Melisa found the contest and told him to go for it. A few weeks later they found out he was finalist and it was up to public voting. With the help from a lot of friends, they were able to get thousands of votes and win the contest.  Upromise was so thrilled with the video that they voluntarily sent Caleb and Melisa on a trip to New York to perform live on TRL. 

My questions for Caleb:    Q. How many contests have you entered in the past?  How many won?

This was actually my first contest, since then I have entered a few more. Check out my video for that Audrey Wait! Contest: http://www.votigo.com/contests/showentry/31022

Q. Why did you decide to enter this video contest? 

My mom got an email about the contests, so I looked at some of the videos, and I just wrote the song. We posted it, and about a month or two later we were finalist. It was up to the public voting at that point.  I promoted a lot at my school, we ran an ad in the newspaper, and online at www.online-sweepstakes.com. It was a little more challenging because voting was for people 18 and older.  Teachers at the school voted and students under 18 got their parents to vote.  

Q. Were you a user of the product before you entered?

Upromise is a company that whenever you buy their products from a portion goes into a college. It’s a free service.  

Q. How long did you spend on your entry in the contest?  I spent about 20 minutes making the video. 

Q. What type of equipment are you using?

We have a video camera, a firewire, a computer, and I edited it in Moviemaker. All we use now is my flip video camera for recording videos.  I love that camera!  It’s awesome!

Q. What did you think was the most difficult aspect?

It wasn’t very difficult it was just a fun thing to do, it was pretty straight forward. 

Q. Where did you get your inspiration for your entry?

After my mom told me about the contest, and we were looking at college and looking at how much the books are, and how they had to eat ramen for months straight. I wanted to help out my parents so that they didn’t have to go in the hole for five kids. 

Q. What advice do you have for future video contest entrants?

The biggest thing is to just go for it!  

My Questions for Melisa: 

Q. How many contests have you done?

I‘ve been entering contests for 18 years, and we have struggled living on one income, and you have to look for ways that are going to help your family. The opportunities that come up, we have to at least try. I’ve been an Upromise member for 4 years, and I joined the email list, and when it came up, I was like “Oh my gosh Caleb has to do this!” I told him I have a contest I need you to enter, write a song or something. About 2 weeks later he got it done. It was really pretty simple, there are some contests that have a lot of rules and this one was really easy. 

Q. How many contests have you won?

I won, Liberty Tax Dance for Babies contest, I call it a fluke because for some reason they didn’t have a whole lot of entries, and we had a video of the girls dancing, and we got a video of it, so when I saw that contest, I said that was perfect! That was totally something out of the blue and something we didn’t expect to win. We were also finalist for Renuzit Triscents, which was also a shock! 

Q. Did you really eat ramen for months?

My husband and I had zero money for college and no help.  We sunk thousands of dollars into debt and didn’t finish college because of the financial burden.  There were many times we ate ramen noodles for supper, but I wouldn’t say for months.  I prayed for years that God would open the doors for my kids to go to college and that we could help them get that degree! 

Q. How did get so many votes for the Upromise video?

When Caleb had 16 days of voting, I was trying to think of ways for votes, and posted a bulletin at church. It was TOUGH!  

Q. How many votes did you receive?

Caleb had received 12,545 votes, and they were AMAZED! 

Q. Will we be entering any more contests?

We’re probably going to take a break, but there’s a few more were going to do, and there’s a lot of families that can benefit from winning, and it really depends on the contest, and decided if it’s worth it. We (our family) can only do so many video contests in a year that require voting.  They are a lot of work. 

Andrea Ball, Staff Editor 

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