Sarah's going to Washington! (No, not that Sarah... well, we'll see after the polls close tomorrow night.) Sarah Bunting, the blog maven behind Tomato Nation, has once again won the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge and is making good on her promise to tour various Washington, D.C., monuments dressed as a tomato. But what will she wear to lunch with Jerry Yang?

Quick recap: For the second year in a row, Yahoo! has offered a grand prize for the blogger who mobilized the most readers to donate to DonorsChoose, the charity that lets you directly fulfill wishlists for public school teachers. Last year, Jerry offered to take the champion to lunch. This year, we upped the ante and also threw in a field trip for the victorious blogger's favorite school, worth up to $5,000.

Tomato Nation mobilized 1,162 donors, raising $111,352 and reaching 19,577 kids. She blew away the competition, showing just how powerful blog microcosms can be -- especially in the midst of an it-might-be-or-it-might-not-be-no-one-wants-to-call-it-a-recession. In addition to exceeding her own personal goal of $100,000 (for which she promised to tour our nation's capitol in said bulbous red costume), Bunting is likely now agonizing over which public school will be enjoying Yahoo!'s field trip bonanza.

Let me leave you with these inspiring words from Tomato Nation, explaining just what kind of difference it all made to public school kiddos:

It's not about the crayons or the turtles or the overhead projectors; they need those things, but mostly they need to know people give a damn. At least a little suck into every life must fall, but the worst part of any suck is thinking that no one cares, that you'll have to live with it on your own. One of the sweetest phrases in English, after "I love you" and "open bar," is "damn, that does suck," coupled with a pat on the shoulder. It lets you keep going.

That did suck. Now it doesn't. Y'all gave six figures of damn... [sic] so that enough kids to repopulate my entire hometown could get supplies they needed, and would not lose hope.

We can't wait to host our favorite tomato to lunch here in Sunnyvale. Jerry's napkin is all tucked in.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photo from abchao