** FINAL UPDATE! We’re thrilled to announce that Chad won the contest with more than 50,000 votes. Thanks to all of you who made it happen! **
** UPDATE! Chad has made the TOP TEN FINALISTS in Mitchum’s “The Hardest Working _________ in America” contest! WHOO HOO!! Please vote every day until the contest ends August 15th!! **
Mike Rowe has submitted Chad Pregracke as The Hardest Working Do-Gooder in America in Mitchum’s “Hardest Working ______ in America” contest. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Chad, he’s a great guy who spends every working day cleaning up America’s rivers. And he doesn’t get paid for doing it. Instead, he relies on the refund value of the recycled scrap and donations to his not-for-profit organization, Living Lands and Waters.
You can find out more about Chad and what he does on our website but right now, Chad needs your votes. In fact, he needs LOTS of votes. We’d love it if you, your friends, family and co-workers would please click here: VOTE FOR CHAD
and vote once a day, every day, from every computer you have until the contest ends. We also want to encourage you to post this on your Facebook, MySpace and Twitter pages and wherever else you think would help Chad get the maximum number of votes. (Be sure and retweet like crazy!)
The preliminary round ends July 11th and the video with the most number of thumbs-up will win the “Audience Award”. The second round consists of the Top Ten videos and finalist judging will take place from July 12th until July 18th. Entries from the finalist round will be placed on Mitchum’s YouTube channel for the 2nd round of public voting which takes place from July 19th until August 15th. The entries with the 2 highest scores will be awarded the Grand and Second Prizes. We’re hoping Chad wins the Grand Prize of $100,000. If not, we’re hoping he wins the Second Place prize of $20,000 but even if he wins the Third Place prize of $5,000, we’ll be happy to just help the guy out.
So please, watch the contest video and VOTE. You can also learn more about him out on our website at Somebody’s Gotta Do It. You’ll see that this guy has given his life to cleaning up our rivers, getting dirty and loving every minute of it. Let’s do everything we can to help keep him happy and get him some much needed $$.
Thanks!!
(Remember – vote every day on every computer you can get your hands on and tell everyone you know to do the same until voting ends.
19 Comments
Congrats on winning the Hardest Working Do-Gooder in America Chad! Thanks to Mike Rowe for nominating him! The Quad Cities (where Chad hails from) is soooo proud of him and his team! Whoot Whoot!
I know Chad through my father. He is truly an angel of the environment. A Hard Workin’, Garbage Kickin’ Angel. Thank you Chad, Crew and Volunteers
Friday, July 23rd I had Volunteered through my work (Cargill) to help Livining Land and Water with their River Clean-up in our area. Chad and his brother were there. They were giving the team some much needed time off. I spent two hours helping Chad. What a positive person to be around. He has high energy. We were wet, we were dirty and we were hot but Chad was ready to keep going. As soon as, we finished cleaning up an area Chad was like whoo I saw this ___ just over there let go get it. If, we had more people in this owrld like Chad it would be a cleaner and happier world to live in.
I viewed all of the 10 finalists and they are all amazing people. 9 of them get paid for what they do. Chad does his out of the goodness of his heart, to benefit EVERYONE in hopes of cleaning the rivers in America. He gets no paycheck. I cannot imagine why anyone would NOT vote for Chad Pregracke. God bless him.
Chad is one of a kind. We are blessed that we have such a great person that is helping not only in our community, but many others. Chad and his crew should be very proud of themselves. I am looking forward to helping out on Aug. 14th as we cleanup our hometown area. Anyone interested should checkout his website livinglandsandwater.com. Signup for the extreme cleanup. It is pretty sad that our river is a garabage to can to others, but it is so self rewarding when you spend a few hours trying to make it right.
Just so you know, you can vote from some cell phones [iPhone; not that I have one], and iPad too!
Voted every day for Chad! Sent email to all my address book and told them to vote. We can only hope Chad receives this because he so deserves it!
Shirley M.
Mike Thanks for seeing the effort many of us over look Chad is definitely deserving I emailed everyone I know and encouraged them to Vote . And If You are from the Quad City Area be proud and Vote for one of our Own
I voted yesterday, but when I go to the link today, it shows “you voted for chad pregracke”. I can’t find anywhere that I can vote again. Help!
Response:
*You have to wait 24 hours before you can vote again. Just check back on the site and you will be able to vote again for Chad!
Article today in the Quad Cities Argus/Dispatch on Chad and the vote.
http://www.qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=500652
The get out the vote e-mails are spreading like wildfire throughout the QCA. Everyone here is so proud of our hometown hero!
I am sending my vote from the Sinai in Egypt for Chad. Thanks for what you do Chad (and thanks for the job offer a while back) You keep our rivers clean and I’ll try to keep the Middle East…. from getting too messy. See you all next year!
Does our click on the thumbs up / like under the video constitute a vote, or do we need to register on the Mitchum website and vote there??? Just want to be sure our votes are being counted. I’ve met Chad’s mom (a proud lady!) and as a mom myself admire his work so much for future generations.
Response to to comment:
*On the Mitchum site (follow our link by clicking VOTE FOR CHAD!), in the lower right corner it reads: “You Vote for Chad Pregracke” – click on that and then you have voted for Chad. Remember you can vote every day!
This world could use more people just like Chad. Keep up the great work!!
I have been voting every day. I hope Chad wins!
I live by the confluence of 3 Rivers in Pittsburgh. Let’s see 3 computers 30+ days . That’s over 100 votes. We need to support anyone who cleans our beautiful rivers that are a lifeline in our cities. I have vivid memories of walking river banks with my Dad and he telling me and my sister to never throw anything in the river and for that matter never to throw trash anywhere but in a garbage can ” Give a hoot , don’t pollute”.
Wow – I never knew a guy like this was out there and never knew our rivers were so screwed up. Thanks for bringing attention to this problem. Guess he does clean up on a lot of rivers too – the Missouri, the Illinois and others. And 62 clean-ups in 60 cities last year? The guy’s a machine. Hope he wins something.
That is really good of you, Mike. You see value, in Chad’s efforts…..as well as we all should. Wasn’t a big fan of this contest. You know, folks telling Mitchum themselves, how hard they work. It’s the guys and gals that aren’t nominating themselves that deserve this nod.
Chad, you ROCK! I’m watching for the link for voting. Thanks for the video, Mike. You’re right…he’s the man.