Kids' Pick Awards: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Kids' Pick Awards is and who runs it

The Kids' Pick Awards is a best-of ballot for kid-friendly businesses in Greater Portland, Maine. It was created by Lisa Bazinet, the founder of Real Maine Mom, a publisher of local Maine content and marketing aimed at families. Unlike most ballots in its niche, it is not hosted on a contest platform: the nomination form, the voting page and the results all live on Real Maine Mom's own website at realmainemom.com/kidspickawards/.

The program is a public vote in the fullest sense. Local families nominate the businesses they use, the nominees go on the ballot, and the same audience decides the winners. The publisher frames the whole cycle around family life in the Portland area, and its broader site content, from camp guides to orchard lists, feeds directly into the kinds of businesses the ballot recognizes.

Facts at a glance

For readers comparing Maine ballots, this one sits in a deliberately narrow lane. Statewide readers-choice contests such as the Kennebec Journal Readers' Choice cover every kind of business; the Kids' Pick Awards asks a single question, which local businesses serve families best.

The dated record: editions, windows and what is unpublished

The program's timeline is short but specific. Lisa Bazinet created the Kids' Pick Awards under Real Maine Mom, and the publisher's own photo caption from that first awards event documents the launch. The ballot ran in 2025 and again in 2026, and the 2026 edition is billed on the site as the 3rd Annual Kids' Pick Awards. The publisher's calendar points to a 2027 cycle as well.

Within each cycle year the shape is consistent. Families nominate their favorite businesses throughout January. Voting happens during February, and the publisher labels the month plainly: voting open all of February. For the 2026 edition, a site post in January announced that the ballot was on the horizon and opening. Winners are revealed after the February window closes, and the publisher has marked the occasion with an in-person event.

Several details sit outside that published frame. The organizer has not printed exact nomination and voting dates for the 2027 cycle, so the January-to-February shape is the guide and the precise days should be confirmed on the live ballot each cycle. The publisher also has not posted the full category roster on the page this guide draws from, has not stated any per-supporter vote limit, and has not published an eligibility policy for nominees. Those gaps are worth knowing before planning a push, because they are the rules a supporter would otherwise be guessing at.

How a supporter votes in the Kids' Pick Awards today

The mechanic is the simplest version of a best-of ballot: nominate, then vote, all on one website. In January, a supporter goes to realmainemom.com/kidspickawards/ and fills in the nomination form with the kid-friendly businesses their family uses. The publisher's content areas give a sense of the field, including kid-friendly restaurants, summer camps, dance schools, family photographers, apple orchards and family-friendly beaches.

Once February arrives, the same page becomes the voting ballot. The publisher describes the window as open all of February, which means a supporter does not need to race to a single day; any date that month works. The ballot carries a long category list, and a supporter picks their preferred local business in each one. Because the host is the publisher's own domain, there is no third-party platform to register with, no separate login step published, and no round structure beyond the January nomination stage and the February voting stage.

Two practical notes follow from that setup. First, everything happens at one address, so bookmarking the ballot page is the reliable way back. Second, the publisher has not said whether one supporter can vote more than once or whether any verification applies, so the form itself is the only authority on limits. A supporter who wants their picks to count should simply follow whatever the live form permits and stop there, rather than assuming a rule the organizer has never printed.

Where this ballot sits among Maine's best-of contests

Maine has an unusually crowded best-of field, and the Kids' Pick Awards is the family-shaped corner of it. The state's larger readers-choice ballots each answer to a different publisher: Best of Maine from Down East, the Kennebec Journal Readers' Choice, Mainebiz Readers' Choice for the business audience, the Maine Restaurant Week Diners' Choice for diners, and the Maine Parade of Homes People's Choice for homebuilding.

What separates the Kids' Pick Awards from all of them is the publisher and the lens. Real Maine Mom is a family-content publisher, not a newspaper or a magazine with a general audience, so every category on the ballot is filtered through one question: does this business work for kids and their parents. A restaurant can win here and in a general readers-choice contest in the same year, but the electorate is different, made up of families who follow the publisher's camp lists, orchard guides and event calendars.

The host is also different. Most Maine ballots of this kind run on established contest platforms, while this one lives on the publisher's own domain, which keeps the nomination form, the voting window and the results announcement under one roof. For a business deciding where to invest outreach during a Maine awards season, that means the audience here is smaller and more specifically parental than the statewide contests, and a win signals something a general ballot cannot: that families in Greater Portland picked you on purpose.

Strengthening support for your business on this ballot

Because this ballot runs on the publisher's own site with a two-stage shape, outreach has a natural rhythm. January is for nominations: ask the families who already know your business to put your name on the form while that stage is open. February is for votes: the window runs all month, so a reminder partway through February reaches people who missed the opening. Real Maine Mom has not published any policy on outside help or vote sourcing for this program, so the only printed rules are whatever the live form enforces.

Ground the push in the publisher's own world. Families who follow Real Maine Mom's camp, restaurant and photographer lists are exactly the electorate here, so a message through the channels where those families already see you, your newsletter, your front counter, your own social accounts, fits the ballot better than a generic blast. If you are weighing paid support, read buying award votes first and set expectations from the organizer's rules, not from promises.