Congratulation to Tucker Debord of Worthington, Ohio who was the lucky youngster randomly chosen to be the winner of the G2 Maxspect LED fixture donated by Fins Reef. We are exciting to be making one young hobbyist’s day with this whiz-bang LED fixture and were truly surprised to see the level of interest around this contest. We’re doing our best to bring the spotlight to the youth who are the future of the hobby and sadly had to select just one winner for this contest.
We were glad to hear from Tucker’s father Jeff and confirmed everything we needed to declare Tucker the winner and will be having Fins Reef ship out his light shortly. Tucker has an amazing story we felt compelled to share. According to his father’s contest entry:
My son is 15 and has autism. He says he want to become a marine biologist when he grows up. I am so glad that we have found a common hobby, and he has been researching corals and saltwater fish and all other reef inhabitants. He is obsessed with the hobby and and quizzes me daily with his new found knowledge, “Dad, did you know…?” I have a 29 nano sytem that we put together about 6 months ago, and he wants a larger tank that we can keep all the reef dwellers, especially acropora, his all time favorite, and other corals. All he want for his birthday and Christmas this year is a new aquarium. Please help me put a huge smile on his face for his birthday this November, by allowing us to upgrade his planned fish only tank so we could be able to keep his favorites. It would be a tremendous gift to win this great new product and keep the reefing hobbby alive by assuring excited young people, like my son, can learn to care for and learn more about environment we must live with and care for!
We know this prize is going to help Tucker out tremendously as his interest in the hobby is growing, providing a great therapeutic outlet for him. Autism is extremely misunderstood overall and we know it can be tough on everyone and as his father says, “we found that the reef hobby can give him a hobby that he can share with friends locally and also through the internet blogs and user sites.”
Congratulations again Tucker and thanks to all who participated in the contest. Most of all we’d really like to thank Fins Reef for providing the prize. To learn more about autism and other ways to be involved with raising awareness check out Autism Speaks, a great autism science and advocacy organization.
