Hundreds of students packed the auditorium at Glastonbury High School on Monday morning for the surprise announcement that the school took home the top prize in a national contest.
The school was rewarded with a $100,000 grant from State Farm for an initiative a group of students came up with to promote safe teen driving.
The “Be the Key” club was created as a way to raise awareness about the dangers of drunken and distracted driving.
Audrey Apanovitch, a student, came up with the idea in a research class and encouraged the entire community to take the pledge.
“It’s for passengers and drivers and you just agree that you’re not going to be a distracted driver, that you’re going to be a safe driver,” Apanovitch said.
The students entered the initiative in the State Farm “Celebrate my Drive” contest. They were among 3,300 schools and, thanks to millions of votes through social media, Glastonbury was one of five schools to take home the top prize of $100,000.
“I was definitely in shock. I still am,” Apanovitch said. “It’s so exciting because there’s so much we can do with this money for the school and my initiative.”
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With the excitement, there is also quiet reflection because the club was created after Jane Modlesky, a student, was killed in a drunken driving crash in 2013.
The school is now in the process of creating a curriculum to promote safe teen driving with the hopes of expanding it to schools across the state.
Now that they won the money, the students are forming a committee to decide what to do with it all. They said it will be used to make improvements to Glastonbury High School for years to come.
