Help needed for 5th grader in semifinals of NATIONAL competition! Please vote!

Hi everyone — I know this is a long shot, but we’re asking for help supporting our son Mikey in the nationwide America’s Favorite Student competition. He has made it all the way to the semifinals and is the only contestant from New York still left competing.

Mikey is an amazing kid — top 1% on his CogAT testing, in gifted programming, taking advanced math, and recently played the lead in Shrek the Musical at his school. We’re incredibly proud of him.

The hardest part has honestly been exposure. Other contestants have had local news coverage, radio interviews, businesses promoting them, and large social media pages sharing their links. Meanwhile, our voting link has repeatedly been reported as “spam,” causing Facebook restrictions for people who share it. We’ve been trying to compete almost entirely through word of mouth.

If anyone would be willing to take a second to vote or even just share his story, it would mean the world to our family. We’re trying to prove that community support can still matter more than advertising budgets. ❤️

And if anyone does feel generous enough to purchase votes, they are processed as donations to The Planetary Society and are considered tax-deductible.