Subway Awards Latina With Sports Award

I always love getting good news like this. Subway awarded young Latina Juliette Collazo with a Hispanic Heritage Youth award for sports. She’s from Spring Valley High School (Like the book series from way back! Or am I showing my age right now?) Well anyway, here’s the press release. Congrats Juliette y pa’ lante!

NEW YORK, NY, June 8, 2009 – Olympic Gold medal swimmer Ian Thorpe once said, “Losing is not coming in second.  It’s getting out of the water knowing you could have done better.”  Seventeen-year-old Latina swimmer Juliette Collazo from Spring Valley High School lives by this philosophy in and out of the pool.  This mentality has garnered her myriad awards, such as; Athlete of the Season, Most Determined Swimmer, Counties Finalist, Iron Woman Strongest Swimmer, Journal News Scholar Athlete and Miss Congeniality of the ER Girls Swim Team. Little wonder she is the captain of her school’s swim team.
In recent days, Collazo added yet another award to her outstanding resume. Her passion and discipline led her to be chosen among dozens of high school seniors from around New York as this year’s regional Gold Medal winner of the Hispanic Heritage Youth Award for Sports, which is annually given out by the Hispanic Heritage Awards Foundation and SUBWAY® Restaurants. The award includes $3,000 toward her college education, as well as the opportunity to win its national counterpart, for an additional $5,000 grant.
“This is truly an honor,” Collazo said. “I am proud my hard work and dedication have paid off, and I would like to thank the Hispanic Heritage Awards Foundation and SUBWAY® Restaurants for this generous recognition, of which I am very appreciative.”
Legendary soccer player and Hall of Famer Tab Ramos, a spokesperson for SUBWAY® Restaurants and the 2005 recipient of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s Sports Award, says he is proud of Latinos like Collazo, who are able to excel in both sports and academia. “It is great to see the leaders of tomorrow achieve both in and out of the classroom,” Ramos said. “SUBWAY® Restaurants are solidly committed to supporting the Hispanic community, as well as an active lifestyle.”
In addition to sponsoring the Sports category of the Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards, SUBWAY® also sponsors numerous health-related initiatives around the country. In March, for example, the franchise joined forces with the National Institutes of Health’s “We Can!” program, a national campaign to combat juvenile obesity among youth. Through a series of visits to different schools and community centers around the country, Ramos is talking to thousands of kids about the need to maintain an active lifestyle and eat right.

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Collazo makes it a point to give back to her community.  She attributes her motivation for helping others to her parents. “My parents always told me that the greatest gift God has given us is the ability to help others,” said Collazo. Among the many events and organizations she chairs are UNICEF, the PTA Harvest Festival, American Heart Association, Salvation Army, the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk and the American Cancer Society. She also donates her time as an AIDS awareness instructor for the Red Cross and tutors fellow classmates in a number of subjects, all the while maintaining a remarkable 3.78 GPA. 
“Juliette is an extremely intelligent and self-motivated student with much potential for growth in the future,” said Michael Kalman, Teacher and Advisor at Spring Valley High School. “She is a very capable student who has all of the tools necessary to be successful in college. She is one of the most involved students I have ever known. Her self-motivation and commitment to excellence will ensure her success.”
About the Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards
The Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards were created to identify and promote the next generation of role models by celebrating their accomplishments in the classroom and community.  These young leaders are promoted as role models for their peers. With the Youth Awards as a feeder program, the LOFT (Latinos on Fast Track) initiative was launched in 2004 to systematically develop sustainable relationships between top Hispanic young professionals who have been awarded and America’s workforce.  
The Hispanic Heritage Foundation, a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, identifies, prepares, and positions Latino leaders in the community, classroom and workforce through national cultural, educational, and career development programs. For more information about the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, please visit www.HispanicHeritage.org .
About SUBWAY^® Restaurants
The SUBWAY® restaurant chain is the world’s largest submarine sandwich franchise, with nearly 30,000 locations in 87 countries. Headquartered in Milford, Connecticut, and with regional offices in Amsterdam, Beirut, Brisbane, Miami, and Singapore, the SUBWAY® chain was co-founded by Fred DeLuca and Dr. Peter Buck in 1965. The SUBWAY® brand was ranked the number one global franchise opportunity in Entrepreneur magazine’s 2008 “Annual Franchise 500” listing.  For more information about the SUBWAY® chain, visit www.subway.com and www.subwayfreshbuzz.com .  SUBWAY® is a registered trademark of Doctor’s Associates Inc.

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