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Young Artist Showcase People's Choice Awards

The following are the K-12 People's Choice awardees of the 2025 Young Artists Showcase!  

Transitional Kindergarten:

• Katelyn Reyes - Cleaning Garbage (Mt. Pleasant School District) People's Choice Award
  

Kindergarten: 

• Vida Dena - In the Garden (Mt. Pleasant School District) People's Choice Award
  

1^st Grade: 

• Advik Arunkumar - Art builds civic engagement: involved in arts,involved in life (Sunnyvale School District) People's Choice Award
  

2^nd Grade: 

• Jane Hwang - Art is near (San Jose Unified School District) People's Choice Award
  

3^rd Grade:

• Aishwarya Vedula - The Hallway of Inspiration (Bullis Charter School) People's Choice Award
  

4^th Grade:

• Eleanor Hong - "Protect the Ocean" (Palo Alto Unified School District) People's Choice Award
• Vinisha Sathish Kumar - Little Hands Big Impact (Sunnyvale School District) Honorable Mention
  

5^th Grade:

• James Jackson Jr. - Our World (Berryessa Union School District) People's Choice Award
• Andrew Yen - Used Shoes Save Lives (Cupertino Union School District) Honorable Mention​
  

6^th Grade:

• Luna Lee - Making Joy (Palo Alto Unified School District) People's Choice Award
• Isabella Wu – Peace in a Pot (Saratoga Union School District) Honorable Mention
• Natalie Sun - Volunteer at Senior Center (Cupertino Union School District) Honorable Mention
  

7^th Grade:

• Shihan Yan - Take inspiration and plant a tree (Berryessa Union School District), People's Choice Award
  

8^th Grade:

• Jiayi (Lydia) Wu - Unfinished Stories Between Us (Palo Alto Unified School District) People's Choice Award
• Abinaya Arivalagan - Hand In Hand (Moreland School District) Honorable Mention
  

9^th Grade:

• Madaline Petersen - Heart of Service (Mountain View-Los Altos Union School District) People's Choice Award
  

10^th Grade:

• Elyse Choi - For My Community (Mountain View-Los Altos Union SD) People's Choice Award
• Lucy Montemerlo - The Art of Becoming Smaller (Mountain View-Los Altos Union SD) Honorable Mention
  

11^th Grade:

• Amanda Jin – Media (Fremont Union High School District) Best in Show
• Lucas Li – Parachute (Fremont Union High School District) Honorable Mention​
  

12^th Grade:

• Clarissa Finch - Chaos of Society (Mountain View-Los Altos Union SD) People's Choice Award
• Randy Miranda Dominguez - Somo Mas (Mountain View-Los Altos Union SD) Honorable Mention​â¶Ä‹
  

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Theme - Arts builds Civic Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in Life!

This year's artwork theme is inspired by research highlighted by the National Endowment of the Arts in 2004: Arts as Civic Engagement:  Involved in Arts, involved in Life (National Endowment for the Arts, 2004). In 2017, the Invine Foundation funded a study that had similar findings (Rabkin, 2017). There is a consistent correlation between arts participation and civic engagement, and experiences during adolescence are particularly impactful (Rabkin, 2017, p. 5). The arts build connections between people, evoking trust, and are crucial in rebuilding social capital - shared values and resources used towards achieving a common goal or set of goals. Students can speak to their experiences of arts participation and how they have engaged as volunteers in their communities around environmental, socio-economic, and political issues. Because the nature of the arts is a collaborative and expressive one, youth will be able to create expressive pieces about the ways they engage with their respective communities.

Key Dates 

2024-25 YOUNG ARTISTS SHOWCASE SELECTION PROCESS: 

• November 1, 2024 – April 1, 2025 | Electronic submissions of PK-12^th grade student artwork and media 

• ​Week of April 14, 2025 | People's Choice Awards Adjudication
• May 13, 2025 | Online Student Art Gallery at www.sccoe.org/arts/yas
• May 23, 2025 | Young Artists Virtual Showcase Celebration for all grades: 4:00 p.m. 

Young Artist Showcase 2025 guidelines, worksheets, and submission forms can be found here in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese:  www.sccoe.org/arts/yas

Please share this information with teachers, school site administrators, and other interested colleagues. For further details, please contact Sofia Fojas at artspirationsocialmedia@sccoe.org or visit www.artspiration.sccoe.org.