{"id":211489,"date":"2026-03-30T10:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/211489\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T10:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:57:11","slug":"soul-food-free-water-and-a-no-cost-prom-in-south-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/211489\/","title":{"rendered":"Soul food, free water and a no-cost prom in South Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

A water refill startup landing a national honor, a beloved Overtown restaurant marking five years and Broward seniors getting a surprise free prom. South Florida saw feel-good business news this month.<\/p>\n

Here are key takeaways:<\/p>\n

\"HOPE HOPE Hydration founders Cristina Gnecco, Dave Tigue, left and Jorge Richardson. Courtesy photo <\/p>\n

\u2022 Cristina Gnecco, 31-year-old co-founder of HOPE Hydration, made Inc.\u2019s Female Founders 500 List<\/a>. Her company provides free drinking water through ad-supported refill stations and has logged 4.4 million refills across five U.S. markets while raising more than $26 million.<\/p>\n

\u2022 HOPE Hydration has partnered with Nike and Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix. The company operates in Miami, Los Angeles, New York City, Austin and Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

\"View View of the Red Rooster restaurant located in the heart of Miami’s historic Overtown neighborhood, on Friday, March 13, 2026. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n

\u2022 Red Rooster<\/a>, the Overtown restaurant co-founded by Derek Fleming, Michael Simkins and chef Marcus Samuelsson, has become a community fixture after opening during the pandemic \u2014 when it pivoted to serve over 7,000 free meals before ever hosting paying customers.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Samuelsson, an eight-time James Beard award winner, was drawn to Overtown\u2019s cultural parallels with Harlem. Booker T. Washington Senior High School Principal Anthony Simons arranged for 75 students to have a catered lunch at the restaurant after learning some felt unwelcome.<\/p>\n

\"The The senior class reacts to the news that their prom tickets would be free during a ceremony announcing that Becca\u2019s Closet and Macy\u2019s donated $65,000 so that prom would be free for students on Thursday, March 26, 2026, at Nova High School in Davie, Fla. \u201cWe weren\u2019t hitting that mark [with fundraising] and sometimes kids can\u2019t participate in things because of cost and now not only can they go to prom for free, but then can go to Becca\u2019s closet and get a dress. Being able to come together as a class for prom and take that concern away means the world,\u201d said Jayla Huntley-Murphy, class treasurer. Alie Skowronski askowronski@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n

\u2022 Seniors at Nova High School in Davie<\/a> learned at an assembly that their prom was fully paid for through a $65,000 donation from Becca\u2019s Closet and Macy\u2019s. Tickets cost $225 last year, according to the school.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Becca\u2019s Closet was started as a project by Nova student Rebecca Kirtman, who died in 2003 before graduating. Her mother, Pam, worked at Nova for more than 20 years and had wanted to make its prom free since her daughter\u2019s death. Nova is one of eight high schools covered by Macy\u2019s Prom Fund, which has raised $600,000 toward a $1 million goal.<\/p>\n

This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence and using our own originally reported, written and published content. It was reviewed and edited by our journalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A water refill startup landing a national honor, a beloved Overtown restaurant marking five years and Broward seniors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[96820,92046,123,125,124,94542,39587,96819],"class_list":{"0":"post-211489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-community-meals","9":"tag-marcus-samuelsson","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-news","13":"tag-overtown-miami","14":"tag-red-rooster-overtown","15":"tag-soul-food-restaurant"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}