Have you considered adding badges to our home pages, next to our Writer status? Then when someone visits a members page they would see the badge stating SIMPLE THANKS AWARD - then much like the pop up message that explains writer status it could have a description that pops up with a link to past winners.  

Next if the community homepage were restyled a little bit.  Maybe make more of an announcement section instead of having to get to the discussion boards to find out about featured reviews, simple thanks and promotions.  Instead of the Big box being a link to the discussion board it could have announcements to the community. 

I think those would definitely bring recognition to the program and the winners.