The 2012 winners of the BE BIG Contest!

Today’s guest post is by Lisa Cummins from Scholastic Media. She’s here to announce the winners from this year’s ”2012 Clifford The Big Red Dog BE BIG In Your Community Contest!”   If you want to learn more about BE BIG or see how past winners have made a difference in their communities, check out some of our previous blog posts.

This year, the Be Big In Your Community Contest had more than 800 BIG entries from more than 20,000 kids, parents, teachers and community leaders across the country. These great ideas ranged from writing kids-based school newspapers and creating ‘Teen Clubs’ to educate and support young teens with Down syndrome to hosting ‘Military Culture Camps’ to provide support for military families — and many more!

The grand prize BIG Idea was for Special Needs Athletic Programs (SNAP) which helps improve the lives of children who suffer from autism and other disabilities. Sixteen-year-old Zachary Certner from New Jersey created SNAP five years ago to improve the physical abilities, communication skills, and self-esteem of special needs children through athletic and social programming. The program started as one basic sports clinic and has now expanded to include art, music, tae kwon do, yoga, golf and swimming lessons. The best part about SNAP is its “kids helping kids” approach…now what’s BIGGER than that?

The 2012 grand prize winner

A first prize-winning BIG idea came from Kirsten Young who created a program called ‘Upcycling’ for her school in Lafayette Hill, PA. The students work together to collect, sort and recycle items. The items then get sent away and in exchange donations to veterans and various charities are made throughout the year. Kirsten is hoping to expand her BIG idea to other schools within the district and places in the community.

Another winning BIG Idea came from 14-year-old Victoria B. from Texas. Victoria will create a “Community Clothes Closet” where foster kids can shop and find just the right outfits for them…for free! The clothes closet will be a place where kids who are less fortunate can browse through gently-used items and feel as though they are shopping just like a regular teen.

You can learn more about all of the BIG Ideas that won this year and how you can BE BIG like Clifford every day by visiting the Clifford BE BIG site!