On March 31, 2023, Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) staff and Frank Massabni, owner and CEO of Cool Tropics, surprised Falcon Cove Middle School eighth-grade student Helen Sarmiento with the announcement that she created the winning design in the Cool Tropics Surfboard Design Contest.
In honor of the School Nutrition Association’s National School Breakfast Week (NSBW) that took place in March, BCPS and Cool Tropics came up with a fun design competition to promote the importance of breakfast in students’ academic success.
“Every year, we celebrate national school breakfast week,” said BCPS Food & Nutrition Services Supervisor Cassie Maggio, “It is an opportunity… for public school systems to promote a nutritious breakfast. This year we got creative. Cool Tropics sponsored a contest with us to design a surfboard that would then go on the top of the Raspberry Cool Tropics Slushi to be distributed nationwide.”
The task was to create an original design for the oval-shaped “surfboard top” on the Cool Tropics Raspberry Passion Fruit drink pouch. More than 2,400 students from all grade levels and schools submitted entries. The top 10 designs were reviewed by Cool Tropics and BCPS officials to select the winner. Helen received a $1,000 grand prize and her design will be featured on the product as millions of units are distributed worldwide.
In addition to the grand prize, the second-place winner received a laptop computer and the third-place winner was awarded a mountain bike.
With the theme “Dig Into School Breakfast,” this year’s NSBW encouraged all schools to recognize the importance of a healthy start to the day for fueling a child’s success in school. BCPS offers free breakfast to all students every school day. The National School Breakfast program provides 12 million nutritious breakfasts to hungry children across the country every day.
