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Winners Announced in Olive Garden's Pasta Tales Essay Contest

2009-07-23

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Kelsey Stokes of Beecher, Ill. was awarded the grand prize for her entry in Olive Garden's 13th-annual Pasta Tales essay writing contest. Olive Garden asked students in first through 12th-grade 'How would you use the Internet to change your community for the better?'

A recent graduate of Beecher High School, Stokes wrote an essay describing her innovative idea of organizing an online farmers market to help alleviate the economic burden in her farming community.

In her essay, Stokes outlines a plan to bring awareness to her community and provide support to area farmers. "This website would . . . create an online farmers market that would be a place for local growers to record crop yields and for potential outside buyers to place orders. Not only would this provide the farmers with a means of tracking production, but it would also establish a sense of unity, because everyone would be working collectively," Stokes wrote. "No longer would the growers be limited to selling locally, so their revenues would increase greatly and cover the cost of extra laborers. . . . Beecher, a town that currently flies under the radar, would become an economically and agriculturally sound community. . .."

Her essay was "well-crafted and written in a distinct voice that detailed operational ideas as well as gave insight into her agricultural community," noted one of the judges from the Quill and Scroll Society of the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Iowa who reviews the essays.

As the Olive Garden Pasta Tales grand prize winner, Stokes receives a $2,500 savings bond, a trip with her family to New York City and dinner at the Olive Garden in Times Square.

"We are always captivated with the unique essays students submit and this year was no exception," said John Caron, executive vice president of marketing for Olive Garden. "Kelsey's essay was impressive because it highlights a real concern for families in her community and offers a novel approach to solving it online. We congratulate all of our student participants on a job well done."

Olive Garden also announced a winner in each of 12 grade categories. These winners each receive a $500 savings bond and dinner with their family at their local Olive Garden:

Grade 1: Laurea Wright, Michigan
Grade 2: Abbie McKenzie, Oregon
Grade 3: Melissa Crosby, Illinois
Grade 4: Will Leinart, Arizona
Grade 5: Carli Woodyear, Louisiana
Grade 6: Sebastien Rhodes, Florida
Grade 7: Julia Ibarra, Texas
Grade 8: Shanelle Bobek, California
Grade 9: Abigail Wheeler, Pennsylvania
Grade 10: Courtney Coker, Oregon
Grade 11: Margaret Carey, Arizona
Grade 12: Bridget Montgomery, Virginia

Entries were judged on creativity, adherence to theme, organization, grammar, punctuation and spelling by Olive Garden and the Quill and Scroll Society at the University of Iowa. Full copies of the 2009 essays are available upon request.

The question for the 2009 Pasta Tales essay contest will be announced in August. Entry forms and complete rules will be available at local Olive Garden restaurants and online at www.olivegarden.com/company/community/pasta_tales.asp from Oct. 1 through Dec. 4.

Olive Garden is the leading restaurant in the Italian dining segment with 691 restaurants, more than 87,000 employees and $3.3 billion in annual sales. Olive Garden is a division of Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE:DRI) , the world's largest company-owned and operated full-service restaurant company.

Logos, product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.