***** Press Release ****
2/24/23
We are delighted to announce the winners of the Foundation4Innovation Social Media and Marketing Challenge(SM2C) for the Monterey and Santa Cruz Region. The competition was launched in 2021 to provide an opportunity for adults and youth participants to showcase their social media and marketing skills, graphic design and video production talents, and create a comprehensive marketing campaign. We are so gracious for this year’s SM2C Client, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Human Resources department. They not only sponsored, but were part of a team of local industry-relevant judges who evaluated the submissions, and chose the winning marketing campaigns to win funding and support.
After an intense period of judging, the foundation was able to identify a select group of innovators who showcased superior marketing campaigns and collateral. These winners exhibited exceptional design, ideation, and creativity. These winners included:
Gisselle & Letty: Gisselle Verdugo & Leticia Ramirez (North Salinas High School)
2nd PLACE $300
SC Design Collective: Cristian Santoyo Santiago & Saray Lopez (North Salinas High School)
3rd PLACE $100
The Fantastic Two: Clara Delgado & Yojhary Flores (North Salinas High School)
Boardwalk For Hire Michael Devine (Monterey High School)
Team Uno: Jordyn McGirt (Monterey High School)
AME GRAND CHAMPIONS $500: Arts, Media & Entertainment/ Digital Media, Print & Graphic Design
Gisselle & LettyL Gisselle Verdugo & Leticia Ramirez (North Salinas High School)
The winners all had a common theme - they were all looking to create a marketing campaign for our local partner that would help meet the ‘client’s’ need to recruit seasonal staff. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk will have full access to use these participants' submissions throughout the year and one SCBB staff member said, "It really opened our eyes to what potential is out there in our local youth, and they gave us content we can literally use tomorrow to recruit.” “We were blown away by the ideas and quality of some of the submissions.”
In this work-based learning competition, our participants did market research, created collateral such as monthly social media posts, posters, promotional items, trifold brochures as well as commercials and TikTok posts. These winners have proven themselves as some of the most innovative minds in our community, and well on their way to using their project management, audio and video production skills, graphic design, and social media understanding in their respective fields and we are thrilled to see what they can do with their ideas. We congratulate them on their success and look forward to seeing how they use these viable high wage skills in their future
Although youth and adults can enter any of our F4i competitions individually, we’d also like to recognize three teachers in the area that integrated the project-based learning content into their CTE programs, Max Feldman at Monterey High School, Maria Bonner at Diamond Technology Institute, and Jennifer Ghastin at North Salinas High School. We are also proud to announce the following participants that received Micro-Credentials/ Certifications of Mastery for their work as deemed by thorough evaluations of their projects by our industry judges.
Jordyn McGirt (Monterey High School)
Corbin Kronschnabl & Kenneth Avila Rodriguez (Diamond Technology Institute)
Soledad Quevedo & Sara Maldonado (Monterey High School)
Cristian Santoyo Santiago & Saray Lopez (North Salinas High School)
Luz Moctezuma & Misty Aguilar (Diamond Technology Institute)
Martin Cardoso Rodriguez & Salvador Valdez-Garcia (Monterey High School)
Violet Trevizo & Ba Thanh Santiago (Monterey High School)
Michael Devine (Monterey High School)
Clara Delgado & Yojhary Flores (North Salinas High School)
Maria Aguilar & Sarah Uriarte (Diamond Technology Institute)
Janel Ramirez & Jade Sapien (North Salinas High School)
Isaiah Fernandez-Mariscal & Anthony Heredia (Diamond Technology Institute)
Steven Lopez-Garcia & Axuni Hernandez-Roque (Diamond Technology Institute)
Gisselle Verdugo & Leticia Ramirez (North Salinas High School)
Foundation4innovation will be launching their Industry Ideas and Innovation Challenge (i3C) , sponsored by the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union and the Harry Singer Foundation, the last week of February. This competition allows innovators and budding entrepreneurs to participate with content and templates, in a business plan competition. Participants enter in either the LeanStartup (under 18) category or the Investment Capital Category (12th grade/ 18+) and are open to youth and adults, pairs or individuals.
Want to know more about www.Foundation4innovation.org, participate as a teacher group or an individual or would you like to join our other esteemed digital judges. Contact us today at foundation4innovation@gmail.com