Deadline Nearly Here for Local Voice of Democracy and Patriot’s Pen Contests

The deadline is nearly upon us for the Voice Of Democracy (grades 9-12) and Patriot’s Pen (grades 6-8) Scholarship Programs. Please remind your students that are participating that we plan to be collecting their submissions this coming Friday (October 29th) or Monday (November 1st).

The essays cannot have the students identity in them. They can staple their essay under their official entry form to keep things together.

For Voice Of Democracy (9- 12) Scholarship Program submissions, the oral portion of the essay needs to be on a thumbdrive. This can be placed in an envelope stapled to the entry form as well.

We will assign a number to each contestant that will be affixed to their submission for judging purposes.

We welcome any teachers or other interested adults who may want to help with the local judging process as long as they have no affiliation with the contestants. Judging will be happening locally approximately 10 to 15 days later.

Our local deadline for completion of judging is November 15th. Local winners will be chosen and forwarded to the VFW District judging team, with their required completion of judging by December15th. From there it’s on to TX State VFW for another round of judging. State judging deadline is January 10th. Winners of the Voice Of Democracy Program at the State level will be invited to the National competition in Washington, D.C. on January 15th. The winner of the Patriot’s Pen contest at the National level will also be invited to Washington D.C.

Awards will be made at each level as the entries progress. More details can be found at https://www.vfw.org/VOD/.

We look forward to supporting your participants in these programs.