Hoppy Hearts SC 2026 Calendar Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Hoppy Hearts SC 2026 Calendar Contest is

The Hoppy Hearts SC 2026 Calendar Contest is a photo fundraiser run by Hoppy Hearts SC, a domestic rabbit rescue based in Chapin, South Carolina. The rescue invited rabbit owners to enter a photo of their animal, and supporters then voted for their favorites by giving money. Every dollar raised goes toward the rescue's work with domestic rabbits.

The voting page lives on GoGo Photo Contest, a service that carries charity and community photo ballots, at the address gogophotocontest.com/hoppyheartssc. Contestants were directed to submit their photos through that site, and all voting happened there as well.

The prize structure is simple and printed on the ballot itself. The top 13 bunnies with the most votes at the end of the contest won a spot in the rescue's 2026 calendar, and the bunny with the most votes of all was featured on the cover of that calendar. That gives every entrant a visible goal: enough donations to place among the thirteen published photos, or enough to lead the whole field and take the cover.

Facts at a glance

The confirmed dates and what the rescue has not published

The dated facts for this fundraiser are unusually complete. Voting began on June 15, 2025, and the voting period ended at 9:00 PM Eastern Time on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. Votes had to be registered online before that deadline. The ballot page now carries an ended notice, so the 2026 calendar's voting cycle is closed.

Edition years on file are 2025 and 2026, both anchored to the rescue's calendar fundraiser, which is why the program is treated as annual. The 2026 edition's voting closed in July 2025, several months before the calendar year it is named for, because the printed calendar itself needed the winning photos in hand. Whether Hoppy Hearts SC opens a 2027 edition, and on what schedule, has not been announced anywhere.

Some details are simply not printed anywhere by the organizer. The rescue has not published a category list for the ballot; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. It also has not printed any ceiling on how many votes a single supporter may cast, nor an eligibility rule beyond the photo entry instruction, and no separate nomination round dates appear on the page. Anyone planning around a future cycle should read the rules tab on the ballot itself instead of assuming this cycle's terms carry over.

How a supporter votes in this fundraiser

The mechanic is a donation vote, which makes this ballot different from the free-click contests common elsewhere. On the GoGo Photo Contest page for Hoppy Hearts SC, a supporter browses the rabbit entries, selects the contestant they want to back, and completes a donation. Each $1 donation counted as one vote toward the selected contestant, so the number of votes a bunny holds is a direct, public measure of the dollars raised for it.

That structure has two practical consequences. First, a supporter who wants to move a bunny up the board decides their own budget, since votes scale with dollars given. Second, the deadline matters in a way it does not on daily-free ballots: the 2025 cycle stopped accepting votes at 9:00 PM Eastern Time on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, and nothing registered after that moment counted toward the calendar.

For rabbit owners, entry runs through the Participate link on the same page. The rescue asked contestants to submit their photos to the GoGo Photo Contest website, and the entry step sits alongside the voting step there. Once a photo is in, the entrant's job is to rally donors before the close, because the top 13 vote totals at the end take the calendar spots and the single highest total takes the cover.

How this ballot sits beside other South Carolina contests

South Carolina's public-vote scene is dominated by media and chamber best-of ballots, and this fundraiser sits outside that pack in format and purpose. The Best of South Carolina Awards, the BroadwayWorld South Carolina Awards, the Best of Charleston from Charleston City Paper, Charleston Magazine's Best Of, and the two Columbia titles, the Best of Columbia from Columbia Metropolitan and Free Times' Best of Columbia, all rank businesses, venues and local institutions for readers.

The Hoppy Hearts SC ballot ranks rabbits instead, and it raises money while it does so. Where a readers-choice contest usually lets a supporter click free of charge, this one converts each dollar donated into one vote, so the leaderboard doubles as a fundraising thermometer for the rescue. The market is also narrower: the audience is rabbit owners and animal supporters rather than a general readership, and the organizer is a Chapin nonprofit rather than a publication.

Supporters approaching the two formats need different playbooks. Free-click ballots reward daily returns and broad sharing; this one rewards a concentrated donor push before the July close. Anyone comparing the two across the state's contests should read each ballot's own rules, because the vote rules that govern a media best-of do not transfer to a donation fundraiser like this one.

Strengthening support for your bunny

Because each $1 donation is one vote, campaigning here means fundraising, not reminder spam. Entrants who do well typically give their rabbit's link a clear pitch, explain that the money supports a domestic rabbit rescue, and ask specific people for specific amounts rather than posting once and hoping. A bunny needing to reach the top 13 benefits from a donor plan spread across the whole window, with a final push in the days before the 9:00 PM Eastern Time close on July 15.

Hoppy Hearts SC has not published a rule about outside voting help or third-party services, so entrants should treat the rescue's own rules page as the authority. What is certain is the mechanic itself: dollars are votes, and the leaderboard is public on GoGo Photo Contest.