The Orinda Junior Women’s Club is thrilled to announce the winners of Youth Ink 2024, 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 “Roots,” though participants had the freedom to explore other topics. Here are the talented winners of this year’s top prizes:

  • 1st Place: Harmony Yu, The Hidden Web
  • 2nd Place: Olivia MacDiarmid, California Wishes
  • 3rd Place: Natalie Zhen, Root of Harmony
  • 4th Place: Brandis Hatzicallis, Eighth Grade
  • 5th Place: Ava Marchiel, Just go for it!

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

  • Raunav Agarwal, Identity
  • Marie-Gisele Anagnost, Hope Among the Ashes
  • Sophie Davis, Scratching the Surface: A Memoir
  • Owen Gettell, The Forest Floor
  • Lorelei Keenan, Garlic & Ginger
  • Aavya Khanna, India: My Heart’s Home
  • Emmeline Lew, The Marking
  • Trisha Madannavar, The Arizona Walnut
  • Tess Morici, The Books Behind the Door
  • Raelyn Tellis, Bittersweet

The awards ceremony took place at the Orinda Library Auditorium, with guest speaker, Kathy Cordova, Executive Editor of The Orinda News. 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. Their commitment, expertise, and careful consideration were instrumental in reviewing each entry and selecting this year’s winners from an outstanding pool of submissions. Lastly, we’d like to thank our community sponsors: Friends of the Orinda LibraryThe Intuitive Writing ProjectLamorinda Arts Council and Orinda Community Foundation.

  

Happy holidays! In December, the Orinda Juniors had a great time sampling delicious soups at the annual Holiday Mug Exchange. We also collected gifts to be donated to Ruby’s Place.

  

In November, the Orinda Juniors gathered to make two gifts for our annual fundraiser. The first is a beautiful olivewood spoon and ceramic spoon rest presented in a reusable burlap gift bag. Additionally, we’ve created charming wildflower bouquets that come in your choice of colored glass vases – yellow, blue, green or grey.

  

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!

The Orinda Juniors had a great time gathering last night to make and assemble lovely jars of bath salts for our 2019 Holiday fundraiser!  As part of our service project in support of Warm Winter Nights, we also collected toiletries and other personal items for families in need.

 

The Orinda Junior Women’s Club had a wonderful holiday celebration last night! We collected a mountain of gifts for children at the Bay Area Crisis Nursery, packaged and sold olive oil gift sets for our holiday fundraiser, hosted our annual holiday mug exchange, dined on a wonderful potluck feast, and best of all had a fastastic evening enjoying each other’s company!

One of the favorite events of the year, is the Orinda Juniors annual Mug Exchange and holiday party.  This year, the Orinda Juniors got together and not only exchanged mugs, enjoyed a decadent holiday spread of soups, salads and seasonal treat—we also donated holiday gifts for over 25 children from the Bay Area Crisis Nursery and kicked off a new holiday fundraiser!  Inspired by our November meeting at Amphora, we bottled 142 bottles of specialty olive oils and vinegars, including Basil Olive Oil/White Peach Balsamic Vinegar, Herb Olive Oil/Fig Balsamic Vinegar, and Gold Medal Arbequina Olive Oil.  Once bottled, we labelled and packaged them along with some great recipes and then sold them for holiday gift giving.  Our best fundraiser to date!

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The Orinda Juniors have been giving Santa’s elves a run for his money this year – making homemade chocolate fudge sauce and oatmeal chocolate chip cookie mix for holiday gift giving.

Need a great hostess gift, something for all of the teachers in your life, a fantastic treat for anyone – young or old? Talk to your favorite Orinda Junior before we run out!

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On November 20 the Orinda Woman’s Club will put on the 28th Annual Festival of Trees Benefit Luncheon and Fashion Show at the San Ramon Marriott Hotel. To support the program, the Orinda Juniors have decorated a small tree to be auctioned at the luncheon. Our theme is the 24 Days of Christmas.