LI students set out to snatch cereal-box record back from The Rock

<p>For the second time in a week, the gym at Carey High School in Franklin Square was covered in cereal boxes -- 3,416 of them to be exact.</p>

News 12 Staff

Dec 3, 2017, 9:56 PM

Updated 2,495 days ago

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For the second time in a week, the gym floor at Carey High School in Franklin Square was covered in cereal boxes -- 3,416 of them to be exact.
Just days earlier, seniors Frank Porcasi and Gabriella Fiumaro had led the charge as students at the school painstakingly lined up more than 2,800 cereal boxes and then knocked all them over in domino fashion. They broke the Guinness World record, and each of the boxes, which had been donated by a supermarket, were to be shipped off to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico and Florida.
But the students' glory was quickly toppled. They soon learned that none other than Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson had crushed their newly set record, just hours after they had celebrated their own feat.
They couldn't let it stand. Porcasi and Fiumaro had the trucks filled with the donations turn around to bring the cereal back, and they set out again, this time to beat The Rock's record by more than 400 boxes.
"When you first succeed and The Rock beats you in 24 hours -- try, try again," says physics teacher Alan Odynocki, one of the teachers who helped with the effort.
On Sunday morning, the students began the tedious process of qualifying for a new win. To be recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, the school had to hire two independent counters to tally every single box of cereal.
Once the tally was finished, Fiumaro and Porcasi had the honors of tipping the first box. And one by one, the cereal boxes each tumbled over, until The Rock's record was broken and a new record was set.
The students are submitting video of Sunday's to the Guinness World Record organization to make it official.  
The ambitious seniors had even tried to get The Rock to come to Franklin Square, but no such luck. "He's a busy guy and we're a small school, so I get it," says Fiumaro.
There's no word on whether The Rock will try to make a comeback.