Share the news about the Ben's Beginners contest and your tips for cooking healthy meals with kids for 6,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points!

Thank you for your interest in this program. We have reached our quota of 100 posts and are reviewing each post to make sure they met the requirements. Participants will be contacted via email regarding payment as per the Terms & Conditions below.

We are looking for moms with children age 5-12 who like to spend time in the kitchen cooking healthy meals with your kids for this fun, new blogging opportunity. If you meet this requirement, please read on!

With such busy schedules, families are constantly challenged to find enough quality time to spend together. This year, Uncle Ben’s is encouraging families to get in the kitchen to cook and eat together to connect, one meal at a time. As a strong supporter of healthy eating and family togetherness, Uncle Ben’s is also helping parents establish healthy beginnings in their children’s lives.

How can something so tiny cause a huge change in the way we eat? Studies show that when you begin preparing your meal with rice, you end up with a meal that's better for you. Plus, beginning your meal with Uncle Ben’s rice opens your plate up to better eating because rice attracts colorful vegetables, savory spices and leaner cuts of meat that the whole family loves!

To empower and encouage parents to connect with their kids, one meal at a time, Uncle Ben’s has launched an exciting national contest called Ben’s Beginners! By entering the contest, you could win $20,000, along with a $50,000 grant towards a cafeteria makeover for your child’s school. In addition, you will have a chance to appear on The Rachael Ray show! Uncle Ben’s is calling for parents with children ages 5-12 to submit a 2-3 minute video of you cooking a rice-based dish with your children. For more info on the contest, please check out Ben’s Beginners on Facebook!

In honor of the Ben’s Beginner’s contest, we’ve teamed up with Uncle Ben’s to bring you this fun new blogging program! We want to hear all about your tips for cooking healthy meals with kids! How do you make healthy meal choices for your family? Do you like to cook with rice? How do you get your kids involved in planning and preparing a healthy meal? What do your kids love to cook and eat? In your post, we encourage you to help spread the word about the Ben’s Beginners contest to your readers, and share your tips for cooking healthy meals with kids in an original post of at least 400 words. When you’re done with your post, we encourage you to give a shot at winning the $20,000 prize and share your videos with us and Uncle Ben’s!

We're looking for quality over speed, so please read on.

Posting Guidelines
We are looking for one hundred creative, original and authentic blog submissions of high quality from moms with children age 5-12. Create an original post on your blog, in 400 words or more (using your own words), sharing the news about the Ben’s Beginners Cooking Contest and telling us about your tips for cooking healthy meals with kids. Include a thoughtful introduction, original content within the body of your post, and a conclusion. Check your spelling and grammar. You must also include the disclosure statement that is below in your post and install the campaign widget in the sidebar of your blog. Then follow the rest of the requirements below. We will review every post and the first 100 qualifying submissions will receive 6,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points!

Highlights from your posts, tweets and tips will be collected and featured on the Ben’s Beginners hub page at http://BensBeginners.socialmoms.com, and distributed across the web for all to see. The blogging program starts on January 30, 2012 and the submission window closes at 11:59pm PST on February 26, 2012. We will contact the qualifying bloggers on or about March 5, 2012. Full terms and conditions are posted for your review at http://BensBeginners.socialmoms.com/terms.

Rewards for Participating:
The first 100 qualifying participants will receive a 6,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points! See Terms and Conditions.

Requirements:
To participate, we ask that you:

Create an original blog post on your blog, in 400 words or more, sharing the news about the Ben's Beginners cooking contest and your tips for cooking healthy meals with kids. We are specifically looking for moms with children age 5-12 to participate. Please include a thoughtful introduction and conclusion in addition to the main body of your essay. Give it plenty of thought, and include content that your readers would like to hear about and can connect with! Short or poorly written posts will not be accepted. Copying and pasting does not count. Blank posts submitted to create a blog link on the discussion page will be disqualified. Don't copy another blogger's post or ideas. Plagiarism is grounds for immediate disqualification.
Participants must include the following disclosure as a footnote of their post:
“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Uncle Ben’s blogging program, for 6,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points. For more information on how you can participate, click here.” (make sure you link to http://BensBeginners.socialmoms.com/about)

Install the campaign widget in the side bar of your blog and keep it posted until February 26, 2012.
Get Widget Here

Install the “Like” Box in your blog post
Grab Like Box Code Here

Log on to your Twitter account, www.twitter.com, and send a tweet including a link to your blog post with the hashtag #BensBeginners
Return to www.SocialMoms.net and post a comment on this discussion page in the comments section below, including an active link to your blog post and a direct link to your Twitter tweet. (You can click on the date/time link below your tweet to get the direct link to your tweet.)

Eligibility:
No purchase required to participate. You must be a legal resident of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, have a personal blog and be a registered user of the www.socialmoms.net and www.twitter.com websites to participate and at least 18 years of age or older at time of submission. See Terms and Conditions. Please see SocialMoms FAQs for more information on blogging programs.

About Uncle Ben’s
Uncle Ben’s®, the number one rice brand in America, is proud to offer a wide range of rice dishes with flavors and textures that will help bring more to your meals, both for convenient side dishes and savory main courses. Uncle Ben’s® offers a wide variety of white, whole grain brown, and flavored rices in cook times ranging from 30 minutes to 90 seconds, as well as rice for food service operations such as restaurants, schools and hospitals. The first mass-produced parboiled rice, Uncle Ben’s® is the top-selling branded rice in the United States and products can be found in more than 100 countries worldwide. Uncle Ben’s® Brand products are manufactured by Mars Food NA, part of Mars, Incorporated. For more information, visit www.UncleBens.com.

More info on Uncle Ben’s: http://www.unclebens.com/

Uncle Ben’s on Facebook

Check out recipe ideas from Uncle Ben’s.

Tags: ben's beginners, ben's beginners contest, cooking healthy meals with kids, get kids cooking, uncle ben's