Now accepting submissions for 2025! ¶
Eligibility and Important Dates ¶
Eligibility Requirements
- Students (grades 3 - 12) enrolled in a school or homeschooled within the City of Tampa limits under Tampa Solid Waste Service.
- Clients of the MacDonald Training Center Arts Program.
- Verify with schools list provided in the Rules & Regulations Packet link below:
- To verify if you live within the City of Tampa, check your address using the online service tool: City of Tampa Address Verify
- Click on the button below to read complete rules & regulations.
Dates
- Submission Deadline: Friday, February 7, 2025.
- Online Voting: February 17 - 28, 2025. Voting link will be posted and shared.
- Winners will be notified in March.
- Please review the Contest Rules & Regulations packet for more specifics and details.
For questions, please email Edgar.CastroTello@tampagov.net.
2024 Art Winners ¶
2024 Poetry Winners ¶
Pick Up Your Trash
by Eli - Roland K - 8
Upon my face, a giant frown
As I see the meter going down
Recycle plastic, paper, so much more
As we pick the trash up of the floor
There’s only so much more to do
And to do so we’ll need you
So pick up your trash up of the floor
And the meter will rise so much more
So pick up your trash today
And if you don’t then you will pay
PICK UP YOUR TRASH!
Our Home
Ryan - Brooks DeBartolo Collegiate High School
On this floating rock we call our home
Sparkling blue waters wrap around land
A vast pool of mystery
That many of us misunderstand
An underwater paradise lies beneath its sparkling surface
With corals sprouting from the smooth sandy floor
A home to many forms of life, it serves a purpose
On this floating rock we call our home
Vast terrains are lined with trees
A landscape filled with varying colors and hues
The air fresh and pristine
Living things coexist in natural harmony
A place to call home for each
Their habitats are a source of refuge, comfort, homeliness and peace
But humankind had other plans, their eyes set on industrialization
Using anything, and everything they can for their own benefit
An act of selfish exploitation
Destroying these habitats that life on Earth calls home
Robbing them of their safe places
Leaving no room left for them to roam
On this floating rock we call our home
Were blinded by a money-hungry greed
Depleting poor mother nature of everything she has to give
On all her life and her color we feed
We burn forests down to ash
And pollute rivers, lakes, and oceans
Turning crystal blue to murky brown
Leaving Earth utterly broken
We fill its beautiful terrain with our ugly trash and waste
Continuing these actions without even an ounce of distaste
And when it all comes down we’ll be forced to stop and look back
At how we turned our one and only home into a wasteland full of trash
Thankfully it's not too late
To turn back the clock on this grim fate
We can all come together with a mindset anew
With our heads clearly set on what we must do
The future of the Earth is within our grasp
So Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is the name of the task
With plentiful efforts
And selfness implored
This floating rock we call our home
Can be preserved forevermore
Poor Animals
Arielle- MacDonald Training Center
To recycle is to free or being to
Quality to care of a machine that
Protects the body of water
To discover things that been in the water
Like fish, soda can, unwrapped water bottles
You can reuse different things that come off
Like paper or bags or other metal bottle caps or
That can cut your foot in the water, that can be real deep
In fact, that is a thing done or come to pass us in the water
You have the right responsibility to any object between
To reuse things like water bottles
That coming out of the water and reduce is to restore it
Displaced parts to bring into certain order classification
To look back on in the reuse/recycling bins
And don’t throw trash in the recycling and reuse and reduce
Thank you