Today’s guest post is from Melissa, our colleague in Scholastic Media. Melissa has been working on the 2010 Clifford the Big Red Dog BE BIG in Your Community Contest and she has some great news to share!

Wow! After months of reading nearly 1,000 absolutely amazing BIG ideas from over 25,000 children, parents, teachers and community leaders from age 2 to 70 – Scholastic. HandOn Network and American Family Insurance is ready to announce the 30 winners of the “2010 Clifford the Big Red Dog BE BIG in Your Community Contest” – and I’m really excited! The thing that was most gratifying was seeing that Being BIG truly has no boundaries – people from all over the country, of all ages are invested in helping make their community be the best that it can be. I think everyone deserves a BIG pat on the back for all they do to make the world a better place!

It was inspiring to see how diverse and creative everyone’s ideas were. For instance, Jennifer from Arizona, the Grand Prize winner, saw how hard it was for her sister to stay on top of her school work while in the hospital for an extended period of time, so she and two members from her girl scout troop decided to take initiative. Jennifer and her team will work with the Volunteer Center of Southern Arizona, an affiliate of HandsOn Network, to build a “Hearts for Diamond Classroom Hospital” at her local hospital. What a BIG Idea!

Shelly Sellwood-Davis, a grant winner from Lexington, Kentucky knew the importance of a good nights rest and wanted to make this simple luxury a reality for the children of her community. Shelly and her team developed “Build-A-Bed” and will work with the United Way of the Bluegrass Volunteer Center put together ‘bedtime bags’ with things like pillows, sheets, teddy bears, and night lights and built over 57 twin bed frames to deliver with mattresses.

Or Will, who is just 7 years old and thought to use baseball to help his community with his BIG idea “Hits for Hunger.” Will and his teammates will work with the Volunteer Center of North Texas to raise awareness for hunger in their community. It’s so great to see that even kids are getting involved with giving back – and in really fun ways!

Be sure to visit the Clifford BE BIG website to check out the other winners for your self and get some inspiration for how you can BE BIG everyday!