🌊🐾 BULLDOG SPOTLIGHT: BIANCA BERNHARD! 🐾🌊
We are incredibly proud to celebrate South Fork High School senior and IB student Bianca Bernhard, who has been named one of just three finalists for Loggerhead Marinelife Center’s 2026 Blue Hatchling Youth Award! https://marinelife.org/go-blue-awards/
The Blue Hatchling Youth Award recognizes students through 12th grade who have made meaningful contributions to marine conservation through volunteer service and hands-on action.
Bianca is the founder of the Martin Oyster Restoration Initiative, Inc. (MORI), a nonprofit based at South Fork High School focused on improving water quality in the St. Lucie Estuary through oyster restoration. https://morifl.org/
Under Bianca’s leadership, MORI has grown to include more than 60 student and teacher volunteers who collect, transport, cure, and prepare oyster shells from local restaurants for restoration projects — totaling approximately 1,600 pounds of shell so far.
Her work has already made an impact beyond our campus. MORI received the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program’s Small Grants Kit, with its proposal ranked #1 among submissions, and is collaborating with Docks For a Clean Lagoon to provide cured shells for vertical oyster gardens being placed in the Indian River Lagoon.
Bianca is also working to develop additional oyster-restoration structures, expand MORI to three other local schools, and pursue oyster-restoration research with the Florida Oceanographic Society.
We are especially proud that South Fork has been able to support Bianca’s work right here on our campus, giving her space to pursue an extraordinary passion and turn it into meaningful environmental action.
The Go Blue Awards ceremony will take place October 30 at the Kravis Center, where the 2026 award recipients will be announced.
Congratulations, Bianca! Your leadership, initiative, and commitment to protecting our local waterways are an incredible representation of what it means to be Bulldog Built.❤️🖤🐾 🌊
#BulldogBuilt #SouthForkHighSchool #GoBlueAwards #MarineConservation #IBStudent #MORI #BeMoreBeABulldog