2026 Youth Ink Winners

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The Orinda Junior Women’s Club is thrilled to announce the winners of Youth Ink 2026, the annual creative writing contest open to middle school students who live in or attend school in Orinda. The prompt for this year’s event was “The Journey,” though participants had the freedom to explore other topics. Here are the talented winners of this year’s top prizes:

  • 1st Place: Olivia Kirk “My Grandmother’s Tree”
  • 2nd Place: Dylan Bondy “The Silent Stone”
  • 3rd Place: Olivia Spoto “One More Day”

In addition, we’d like to acknowledge the honorable mentions for their commendable entries (in alphabetical order):

  • Caroline Compton “A Journey of Life”
  • Sebastian Estevez “My Journey”
  • Emery Kollerer “The Ones”
  • Olivia MacDiarmid “The Road Between”
  • Paige McPhaden “The Missing Sock”
  • Iniya Mubeen “Tales of Aurelia”
  • Alina Ngo-Olson “My Journey is Falling”
  • Alexis Park “Battle of the Mind”
  • Isabella Park “The Moments in Between”
  • Elora Salinas “The Struggle of Infinity”
  • Mao Yoshikuni “Our Story, Their War”
  • Natalie Zhen “The Place You Cannot Go Back To”

The awards ceremony took place at the Orinda Library Auditorium, with guest speaker, Andrew Mayne. We extend our gratitude to all participants for sharing their talents with us. We are very grateful for our volunteer judges – A.J. Brown, Charleen Earley, Sally Hogarty, and Sana Shukairy. They thoughtfully provided time and expertise in reading each entry and contemplating this year’s winners among a stellar pool of entries. Lastly, we’d like to thank our community sponsors: Orinda Women’s Club, The Friends of Orinda Library and Orinda Community Foundation.

2026 YouthInk Writing Contest

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2026 Theme: The Journey

We are pleased to announce the YouthInk 2026 writing contest launches on December 15, 2025!  The YouthInk writing contest was created to support the literary arts among young people in the Orinda community. YouthInk is open to all 6th, 7th, and 8th graders who live in Orinda or attend an Orinda school.

Entries must be a story (fiction or non-fiction), poem, or other creative writing form; presented in English, and written specifically for the contest and without teacher or parent involvement. Length must be 750 words or less. Submissions will be evaluated on content, clarity, structure, and originality.

Prompt

The writing prompt for 2026 is The Journey; however, you may write about anything you like—real or imaginary—adhere to the prompt or not! There is no limit to your imagination.

Entry

Contest opens December 15, 2025, and closes on February 8, 2026.

Click here for the YouthInk 2026 entry form.

Entries will only be accepted via the entry form or email to oyouthink@gmail.com with the following:

  • Completed entry form. Make sure to include all required information in your submission.
  • Please share your document in Word, PDF, or Google doc, with the name of your piece as the title. Please do not put your name on the document.
  • Your name will go on the entry form that you submit with the document.

Once you have submitted your entry, you will receive a receipt notification from oyouthink@gmail.com to confirm your entry was successfully submitted.

The entries will be judged by a panel of local, professional, and bestselling authors, writers, reporters, and children’s book editors.

Prizes

First Place $250, Second Place $125, and Third Place $75, and ten honorable mentions gift certificates. Winners will be notified by mail and receive their prizes at an Awards Ceremony on May 7, 2026. The ceremony is open to the public and all family and friends are invited.

2025 Youth Ink Winners

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The Orinda Junior Women’s Club is thrilled to announce the winners of Youth Ink 2025, the annual creative writing contest open to middle school students who live in or attend school in Orinda. The prompt for this year’s event was “The Capes We Wear,” though participants had the freedom to explore other topics. Here are the talented winners of this year’s top prizes:

  • 1st Prize: Natalie Zhen, “Beneath All These Threads”
  • 2nd Prize: Olivia MacDiarmid, “Counting by Color”
  • 3rd Prize: Joanna Yu, “Threads of Bravery”

In addition, we’d like to acknowledge the honorable mentions for their commendable entries (in alphabetical order):

  • Ava Allaire, “Finding Grace”
  • Nithya Amilineni, “The Life I Had”
  • Caroline Compton, “The Merry-go-round”
  • Casey Eun, “Until”
  • Olivia Kirk, “Our Group”
  • Isabella Park “My Symbols of Strength”
  • Jaya Patel, “Cloaked”
  • Olivia Spoto, “Her Forgotten Stories”
  • Eva Sway, “Two”
  • Mao Yoshikuni, “Echo of Ashes”

The awards ceremony took place at the Orinda Library Auditorium, with guest speaker, Praveen Singh, Chief Marketing Officer of TYT Network. We extend our gratitude to all participants for sharing their talents with us. We are very grateful for our volunteer judges – Linda Bizzarri, A.J. Brown, Anne Lowell, and Sana Shukairy. They thoughtfully provided time and expertise in reading each entry and contemplating this year’s winners among a stellar pool of entries. Lastly, we’d like to thank our community sponsors: Friends of the Orinda Library, The Intuitive Writing Project, Lamorinda Arts Council and Orinda Community Foundation.

Bunny Baskets

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The Orinda Juniors came together in March to assemble Bunny Baskets for kids staying at the Family House for Oakland Children’s Hospital. This low cost home-away-from-home has 16 bedrooms available for families who live more than 70 miles from the hospital.

Annual Social

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We had a blast at our annual social in February where we learned Latin dance at the Sizzling Latin Dance Studio in Lafayette!

2025 YouthInk Writing Contest

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2025 Theme: The Capes We Wear

We are pleased to announce the YouthInk 2025 writing contest launches on December 16, 2024!  The YouthInk writing contest was created to support the literary arts among young people in the Orinda community. YouthInk is open to all 6th, 7th, and 8th graders who live in Orinda or attend an Orinda school.

Entries must be a story (fiction or non-fiction), poem, or other creative writing form; presented in English, and written specifically for the contest and without teacher or parent involvement. Length must be 750 words or less. Submissions will be evaluated on content, clarity, structure, and originality.

Prompt

The writing prompt for 2025 is The Capes We Wear; however, you may write about anything you like—real or imaginary—adhere to the prompt or not! There is no limit to your imagination.

Entry

Contest opens December 16, 2024, and closes on February 9, 2025.

Click here for the YouthInk 2025 entry form.

Entries will only be accepted via the entry form or email to oyouthink@gmail.com with the following:

  • Completed entry form. Make sure to include all required information in your submission.
  • Please share your document in Word, PDF, or Google doc, with the name of your piece as the title. Please do not put your name on the document.
  • Your name will go on the entry form that you submit with the document.

Once you have submitted your entry, you will receive a receipt notification from oyouthink@gmail.com to confirm your entry was successfully submitted.

The entries will be judged by a panel of local, professional, and bestselling authors, writers, reporters, and children’s book editors.

Prizes

First Place $250, Second Place $125, and Third Place $75, and ten honorable mentions gift certificates. Winners will be notified by mail and receive their prizes at an Awards Ceremony on May 8, 2025. The ceremony is open to the public and all family and friends are invited.

Contest Sponsors

The contest is organized and run by the Orinda Junior Women’s Club, with additional financial sponsorship provided by Friends of the Orinda Library, The Intuitive Writing Project, Lamorinda Arts Council, and Orinda Community Foundation.

Holiday Mug Exchange

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The Orinda Juniors had a wonderful time tasting a variety of delicious soups at our annual Holiday Mug Exchange. In addition, we collected gifts that were donated to Ruby’s Place.

Holiday Fundraiser Meeting

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This November, the Orinda Juniors came together to create our annual fundraising project. We assembled beautiful gift bags filled with Hibiscus Ginger Lemon and Hot Toddy drink mixes which can be enjoyed as a cocktail or a mocktail. The bags make great gifts for co-workers, friends and family.

   

New Member Meeting

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We had a fantastic time at our October meeting, where we welcomed prospective new members and shared our passion for community service. Together, we assembled gift packages for Project Glimmer, an organization that supports teenage girls and women through partnerships with more than 2,000 organizations including foster care, homeless, crisis care, and youth services.

September Service Project

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Orinda Juniors members came together to assemble 72 blankets with a message of encouragement for women undergoing breast cancer treatment. These blankets are intended to offer extra comfort to patients during their treatment. We will be donating the blankets to the HERS Breast Cancer Foundation in Fremont, California.