Children's Home Comes Up Short in Contest For $25,000 From Home Depot

lost out to the Veterans Guest House of Reno, Nev., .

Voting ended at noon Thursday for the contest, in which all votes were cast on Facebook. The winner was announced on the Facebook page.

The Children's Home had a lead going into Thursday, but was overcome by a late surge by the Veterans Guest House.

Other groups in the running included Hands on Greater Phoenix and Volunteers of America Michigan in Southfield, Mich.

The Children's Home sent out this message to supporters:

Wow! Thank you all so very much for all that you did to support us and rally behind the goal of winning $25,000 from the Home Depot Foundation in their Facebook contest to build a playground for our younger children on campus. The official results came in this morning, and unfortunately, we did not win the $25,000.

However, we are thrilled to have received $5,000 for coming in second place, and we thank The Home Depot Foundation for that gift, and for allowing us to participate in such an exciting race-to-the-finish contest.

We had over 16,000 votes at the end of the contest, which speaks to the strength of our community.

But the work is not over! There is still a playground to be built! If everyone who voted gave at least $10, we could easily fund the remaining cost of the playground (the $5,000 we received from The Home Depot Foundation will start us out!). Please make a donation today, here on our secure website*, and together we will build that playground for our sweet children like four-year-old Sam, who we told you about in our Facebook posts.

-Your friends at the Children's Home

*You can also mail your donations to us. Please make your check out to UMCH, indicate that it is for the playground, and mail it to 500 S. Columbia Drive, Decatur GA 30030. Thank you!