2019 High School Winners

Kevin Florio is a junior at Tahanto Regional Middle/High School in Boylston, Massachusetts and co-produced his video along with Jake Florio. Kevin first learned of the video contest in his Global and Contemporary Issues class. His passion for combating waste and pollution influenced his decision to submit a video in the Sustainable Resource Use category. Kevin and Jake decided to focus their video specifically on the issue of reducing use of single-use plastics because, “littering is a world-wide issue and this is an easy solution to reduce it.” After doing more research on the issue, they were struck by how deeply connected an increasing population is to single-use plastic waste.

Having grown up making videos for school projects, Kevin found the video contest very familiar territory. However, this was the first contest he has participated in and won. The group experienced several challenges, mainly capturing good quality outdoor shots. They produced their video during the winter months, a time when Massachusetts receives a lot of snow. Despite the obstacle, they persisted and used the snow to their advantage by featuring it in the video.

Kevin advises future contest participants to, “pursue producing a video in a category you are most passionate about.” This, for him, “made the process very enjoyable.” When not producing videos, Kevin plays basketball with his friends, enjoys being active outdoors, and works at a farm stand. He wants to major in Business or Economics. Although he doesn’t know what college he wants to attend just yet, Kevin does know he plans to save his contest prize money for tuition!