The final twelve in the 31st annual Caring for the Kenai competition will take the stage at the Kenai Central High School Little Theatre to present their ideas on improving the environment or preparing for a natural disaster in the annual Earth Day tradition. The finalists will be competing for over $8,000 in cash prizes for themselves plus $20,000 in cash awards for their high school classrooms.
Merrill Sikorski, contest creator and coordinator for Caring for the Kenai spoke with KSRM, “We will be having the 31st annual Caring for the Kenai environmental awareness competition over at the Kenai Central High School little theatre. However due to COVID restrictions, we will not have a public audience. However, anybody can watch live, it will be streamed live compliments of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District. You can either go to their website, the KPBSD website. There will be a link there, or if it’s easier, go to caringforthekenai.com on our home page. There will be a link there that you click on and you can join the presentations live. The kids last year were not able to have live presentations. They made Zoom room recordings and then had a Q&A. This year we are back on stage, back with the experience that give kids the opportunity to think on their feet to present their ideas and to sell it to a panel of live judges followed by 3 to 5 minute question and answer session.”
Even with the COVID-19 disruptions, students from high schools borough wide including Cook Inlet Academy, Kenai Central High School, Homer High and home school students participated in this year’s curriculum.
Sikorski talks about what happens next after the oral presentations, “A week from today at the joint chamber of commerce meeting in the Soldotna Sports Center, we will be presenting the awards and the cash awards to the classrooms of the schools that participated of the twelve winners and which schools they come from. The prize money will be awarded and then the community will be invited then to come out to meet these kids to hear briefly from them to summarize their idea when we present their awards at next week’s joint chamber of commerce meeting.”
The judging is done anonymously with the student’s name and school not being revealed till after the final oral presentations. The public is encouraged to join the presentations live online. The program begins tonight at 6:00 p.m.