Huge congratulations to my mentees, Lauren Lin and Eva Chen! Lauren Lin is the Inaugural Burlingame-Hillsborough Youth Poet Laureate! Lauren who also won Youth Speaks’ Teen Poetry Slam Finals will represent the SF Bay Area at the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival this summer!
Eva Chen is the first student from San Mateo County to receive the Princeton Prize in Race Relations Certificate of Accomplishment! Eva who had an incredible year as Burlingame’s 2022 Youth Poet-in-Residence, 2022 Young Woman of Excellence honoree, Loren Mahon Book Scholarship Awardee, and the first youth poet to be inducted into the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame, will be attending Yale in the fall. Eva’s work is also featured in the climate change anthology I am co-editing with Luisa A. Igloria and Jeremy Hoffman, Dear Human at the Edge of Time, a companion to the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
Thank you so much to Burlingame Public Library and Jenny Miner for launching the YPL program, and my friend and City Librarian Brad McCulley, Councilmembers Donna Wills Colson (Burlingame), Marie Chuang and Leslie Ragsdale (Hillsborough), San Mateo County Office of Arts and Culture Executive Director Robin Rodricks, and the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women for their support of our youth. Lastly, congratulations to all the finalists, gifted poets and young leaders, who showed up for every workshop, and who are everyday making a difference in our community fabric and narrative.
Aileen Cassinetto 