Mr. and Miss Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, released a video on April 1. to encourage students to vote for their school in the Home Depot “Retool Your School” challenge.
In the comical video, Anquinette “Annie” Taylor, accompanied by several students, made April fools jokes to get across the fact that with determination, FAMU will win the $50,000.
The jokes included, “FAMU doesn’t have a beautiful campus, April fools” and “FAMU will not win the retool your school competition, April fools.”
Retool your school is an annual challenge that started seven years ago, an initiative by Home Depot for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
This year FAMU students are determined to bring the $50,000 to the hill, currently leading in the competition in their cluster, cluster one, with 1,140,196 votes, but with Delaware State University not too far behind with 106,584.
Apart from going online to RetoolYourSchool.com and voting, the use of the hashtag #FAMU_RYS16, on social media is another way to contribute to voting. Students have been consistently using the hashtag on instagram, twitter and other social media outlets.
Taylor believes that the video is an effective way to reach out to the students and have them vote in this competition.
“I did the video for the retool your school project solely because by doing that it can enhance our chances of receiving the $50,000 from Home Depot which we will put toward a sustainability project,” Taylor said.
Akida Daley, a second-year business administration student from Miramar, Fla., expressed how the video made her more excited to vote when she realized that even Miss. FAMU was excited.
“I personally believed that many people began to vote when they saw the video because that is when I actually started voting,” Daley said.
Taylor believes that this sustainability project will help students on campus and provide jobs or assist with further research to be able to implement various things for environmental classes here on campus.
Taylor expressed that she wanted to reach her peers through video.
“My motivation behind it is simply because I am a student and of course Miss Florida A&M University and I do care a lot about our university and the things that we can do to ensure that FAMU is always growing, and growing with economy as well” Taylor said.
Taylor also expressed that she believes that her video has affected people and that students have appreciated seen her and Mr. FAMU in such a comical light.
Many students are excited for the results and are planning to continue voting everyday until April 24th. Yaniqua Chambers, a fourth year accounting student from Philadelphia, Pa., shared how she felt about the competition.
“I am really excited to get up the morning of April 24 to hear that FAMU has won the $50,000,” Chambers said.
Home Depot will award nine grants in this year’s competition, 3 winners of 50,000, 3 winners of $30,000 and three winners of $20,000, one of each, from each cluster.
The competition ends April 24.