2021 Youth Ink Winners

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The Orinda Junior Women’s Club is pleased to announce the winners of Youth Ink 2021, the annual creative writing contest open to all middle school students who live in or attend school in Orinda. This year’s prompt was Hope, though entrants were welcomed to write on the theme of their choice. We are pleased to announce this year’s top prize winners:

1st Place: Emma Wong, Symphony in 2020

2nd Place: Audrey Kosla, The Box

3rd Place: Laurel Reader-Taatjes, Stargazer: A Tribute to My Far Away Family

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

Reese Akel, Days, Upon Days, Upon Days

Rory Gaarder-Wang, The Mystery Machine

Penelope Claire Gall, If We Don’t Act Soon

Josslyn Grover, Seed of Hope

EJ Ho, Dr. Andrew Blunk and the Yeti Discovery

Alexa Jardine, Mia’s Christmas Hope

Nura Mohiuddin, The Key

Amanda Roach, Our Resilient Nation

Hana Shukairy, Burning Question

Jila Sponzilli, Flight for Hope

Read the winning entries!

We enjoyed a socially distanced awards ceremony at the Orinda Park, with guest speaker N.H. Senzai, is the author of award winning Shooting Kabul. We thank all of our entrants for sharing their talents with us.  We are also very thankful to our Youth Ink volunteer judges, who thoughtfully provided time and expertise in reading each entry and contemplating this year’s winners among a stellar pool of entries. This year’s judges were Maya Shweiky,  Alina Dyndikova, Imran Ali Malik, Kathryn Turner, and Marcy Stoeven.

Lastly, we’d like to thank our community sponsors who have enabled the Orinda Junior Women’s Club to offer this year’s Youth Ink writing contest to Orinda middle schoolers with their financial support: Friends of the Orinda Library, The Intuitive Writing Project, Lamorinda Arts Council and Orinda Community Foundation.

 

Packaging Masks for Oakland Unified School District

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At the Orinda Juniors Women’s Club April meeting, members came together to help package 1,800  reusable cloth masks for students and staff of Oakland Unified School District. The masks were produced by Junior member, Kristiana Tom, owner of Mask the Bay, who received a donation of 15 bolts of fabric from Orimono Imports. The support of a retired Oakland elementary teacher, Mrs. Penny Wong and her neighbors also contributed to this amazing effort.

 

Bunny Baskets

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Thank you to all of the Orinda Juniors who purchased, shipped and dropped off items and to those who came by to assemble ‘Bunny Baskets’ for the children staying at Family House at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

It was great to see so many of you – the baskets turned out great and will be such a special treat for the kids!

 

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Statement

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The Orinda Juniors board voted to add our organization’s support to the Kiwanis Club statement that is running in the February 3rd edition of Lamorinda Weekly.  It will also be posted to NextDoor, Lamorinda Patch, and the Moraga Citizens Network.

Holiday Donations

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A huge THANK YOU to all of the Orinda Juniors who so generously donated to our annual holiday gift drive for Stand! Against Domestic Violence. We reached the goals set out on our sign up genius and collected 53 new coats, hoodies, and sweaters for kds, teens, and adults.We also delivered $325 in gift cards.

STAND will be setting up a boutique with your items so that families can come in (one by one in isolated manner) to pick out what they need and like! An empowering experince for the women and families impacted by domestic violence during this crazy pandemic!

Thank you to Preety, Seema, and Joanna for organizing this great effort!

 

Virtual Mug Exchange

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In early December we VIRTUALLY held our annual holiday meeting and mug exchange. While we only had a few of us there, we still enjoyed spending some time together, playing some trivia, and enjoying a bit of the holiday spirit.

2021 Youth Ink Writing Contest Opens

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We are pleased to announce Youth Ink 2021 writing contest launches on Tuesday, December 1, 2020!  The Youth Ink writing contest was created to support the literary arts among young people in the Orinda community, Youth Ink 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. Entries must be 750 words or less. Submissions will be evaluated on content, clarity, structure, and originality.

Prompt

The writing prompt for 2021 is Hope; however, you may write about anything you like—real or imaginary—adhere to the prompt or not! There is no limit to your imagination.

To Enter

Contest opens December 1, 2020, and closes on February 26, 2021.

Download a Youth Ink 2021 entry form.

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

  • Completed entry form. Make sure to include all required information in your submission.
  • PDF of entry submission. We will not accept Google doc, Word doc, or any other format. The contestant name must be listed in a header on the top right corner of every page.

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

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 in April.

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 Fundraiser

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Each year, the Orinda Juniors assemble and sell a unique holiday gift to raise money to support our philanthropies. Like seemingly everything else this year, we had to make some changes, but the bay area fires and social distancing guidelines could not stop us!

Masked members came in shifts to one of our backyards to put together everything you need for a perfect cup of tea – assembling 75 Green Tea and Honey gift sets! Sales of the gift sets will support our annual YouthInk Writing Contest for middle school students as well and support the many great community service projects we participate in.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this great event happen!

Fundraising Donation

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In Spring 2020, we donated 50% of our fundraising to help provide meals from Orinda Restaurants to front line workers like the hospital employees, Safeway workers, police, and fire departments.

2020 Youth Ink Winners

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The Orinda Junior Women’s Club is pleased to announce the winners of Youth Ink 2020, the annual creative writing contest open to all middle school students who live in or attend school in Orinda. This year’s prompt was The Gift, though entrants were welcomed to write on the theme of their choice. We are pleased to announce this year’s top three prize winners:

1st Place: Kaylin Chang, Bright as the Sun

2nd Place: Emma Wong, Jin’s Gift

3rd Place: Holly Carysforth, East

In addition, we’d like to acknowledge the honorable mentions for their commendable entries:

Carson Blair                    The Gift

Kaia Bonham                  Bea

Josslyn Grover                Song of Life

Pateel Haroupian          The Monarch Butterflies Plead for Our Help

Indie Lee                         A Well of Memories

Jewel Mendiola              The Gift

Hana Shukairy                The Everlasting Break

Elise Vansant                  Four Words

Jason Wagner                 The Gift of Immigrants

Jialei Zhang                     Home at Last

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place recipients received cash prizes of $250, $125, and $75, respectively.   The Honorable Mention recipients received gift certificates to our local Orinda Books.

While we usually celebrate Youth Ink writers at a springtime awards ceremony, given the circumstances of our global pandemic, we were unable to meet in person this year.  We thank all of our entrants for sharing their talents with us.  We are also very thankful to our Youth Ink volunteer judges, who thoughtfully provided time and expertise in reading each entry and contemplating this year’s winners among a stellar pool of entries. This year’s judges were Sally Bolger, Cynthia Leslie-Bole, Michelle Meyers and Colleen Weems.

Lastly, we’d like to thank our community sponsors who have enabled the Orinda Junior Women’s Club to offer this year’s Youth Ink writing contest to Orinda middle schoolers with their financial support: Friends of the Orinda Library, The Intuitive Writing Project, Lamorinda Arts Council and Orinda Community Foundation.