$45,000 Dream Quince Party Won by Badly Written Entry
Verizon is throwing a really big 15th birthday party in San Jose, California.
Athaly Ramos will celebrate her Quinceañera with a $45,000 dream party sponsored by Verizon Wireless with a performance by Hip-Hop star Sean Kingston.
Athaly Ramos will celebrate her Quinceañera with a $45,000 dream party sponsored by Verizon Wireless with a performance by Hip-Hop star Sean Kingston.
Athaly Ramos from San Jose, won the Verizon Wireless' "My Fabulous 15" contest. The program garnered more than 6 million online and text message votes.
Her winning entry has quite a few grammar, spelling and "prety" dumb mistakes. Here's the entry with misspelled words in bold.I never really wanted a Quinceanera because I knew my parents coudnt aford it.I didn't want to think about my dream party when i knew it was never going to happen
I didn't want to get my hopes up for no reason.
We don't have alot of money because my parents are still paying their
morgage and now that my dad's cholesteral is too high we must buy new
foods that cost a little more then the usual so thats less money we
have. I'm prety bright and understand alot.I'm not the smartes girl in school or the dumest.I came to U.S.A when I was 7 now I speak fluent english and spanish and have a 3.1 in school.
Winning this grand prize would make me the happiest girl because I always hear about parties my friends are having and can't talk about my own because i won't have one. I would like to have my own big party that I've always dreamed about.If I don't win the grand prize I won't have a big quinceanera or a quinceanera at all probably not even a party.Now that i have applied for this contest I will be praying every day and hoping and wishing and dreaming that i can have my big Quinceanera.
Comment from Wireless Mobile News:
Our crack copy editor notes Athaly does need a spelling teacher, which may not help pay the "morgage". She's probaby "prety" bright and she isn't the "smartes" girl in school, but she does know how to win a party!
Maybe Verizon should offer a contest for excellent writing, with great grammar. The prize could be a job at Wireless and Mobile News!.
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This is cruel.
My sister teaches latino students and they have a lot of problems with spelling. They will probably always have trouble, as they did not start learning English until the 4th grade.
This girl learned English at age 7. She is probably an ESL student (English as a Second Language) and also claims to be from a very poor family. I think they chose her essay because her family is poor, not because of her spelling.
Also, I don't think Verizon chose her entry, but rather the public. If grammar is an issue for them, they should weed out the finalists.
We do not intend to be cruel. Although many English teachers appear to be very cruel.
There are many people who are poor when they come to the United States and learn how to write correctly by the time they are in high school.
Spelling is something that can be learned.
It's a sad state of affairs when someone wins a party just because she is poor.
It is interesting to note that the first commenter assumed that the winning entry was so poorly written because the girl was Hispanic. We have heard from school teachers that most students are now writing like they text message. Text messaging is more popular than talking on cell phones.
The decline in writing skills due to cell phone texting could be addressed by the carriers who profit from text use. They could offer special classes and $45,000 parties for learning to write correctly.
My boyfriend saw the entry and didn't even read it. He just voted for Athalay because she was cute. Maybe most voters didn't read the entry and just looked at the picture.
If she wanted to, she could have written out her entry first at school in a wordprocessing program and copied it into the entry form.
I ran her entry in MS Word and fixed all the errors in a minute.
I find it funny that she is in San Jose, the heart of the Silicon Valley. My boyfiend just thinks she's hot.