The Santa Cruz Public Libraries (SCPL) is pleased to announce the winner and runners up of the children’s Library Card Design Contest.
The winning design, titled “Dive Into a Book”, was created by Holy Cross Elementary 5th grade student Chiara Rojas, age 10. Chiara’s design will be available as an SCPL library card beginning in mid-January.
Seven runners-up were also chosen by a panel of judges, and those designs will be available as bookmarks in mid-January as well.
Runners-up Include
- Kendra Zuniga, Live Oak Elementary, age 9, — “Santa Cruz to Me”
- Lucia Hundall-Saez, Mountain Elementary, age 11, — “A PPPrfect Book”
- Jessica Dunn, Baymonte Elementary, age 10, — “Happy Library”
- Dayton Dvorak, Orchard School, age 9, — “Santa Cruz Ocean”
- Natalie Salerno, New Brighton Middle School, age 11, — “The Magic of Reading”
- Maya Huet, Gault Elementary, age 9, — “Read”
- Nico Shulman, Santa Cruz Gardens, age 11 — “Reeeee!”
Winners were selected over the course of 3 weeks by 3 separate panels of judges. The library’s Teen Advisory Group first evaluated over 400 entries. They chose 20 for further evaluation. Forty additional entries received after the deadline were included in the second round of evaluations due to power outages and school closures during the last week of October. These were evaluated by SCPL’s K12 Outreach Team, who chose the final 10 entries.
Chiara Rojas, age 10, 5th grade at Holy Cross Elementary
Those 10 entries were evaluated by our final panel of three judges: Audrey Sirota, Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator from COE; Eric Howard, SCPL Assistant Director; and Molly, a young library patron.
This panel chose the final winner. All the judging was blind — judges did not see any identifying information.
All the finalists were from different schools, which says a lot about the art programs at Santa Cruz County Schools and the talented students in our county.
All the entries were wonderful and they could not narrow it down to only 5 runners-up, so after much deliberation 7 designs were chosen to be made into bookmarks.
According to Heather Norquist, the library system’s East Region Manager and K12 Outreach Team Lead, the library’s goal is to make sure that every first grader in the county gets a library card.
“The contest was a really fun way to raise awareness about all the programs we do in support of children’s literacy and education,” Norquist said. “Reaching our goal requires a high level of awareness and working closely with schools. This contest is just one step in that direction.”
SCPL sincerely wishes to congratulate all the winners. We also thank all the teachers and school librarians who encouraged their students to enter the contest, as well as all the children who took the time to create wonderful art in support of reading.
SCPL invites the entire community to a celebration party for the winners from 3-5 p.m. on Jan. 11 at the Downtown Branch Library, 224 Church St. Refreshments will be provided.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries delivers information, education, enrichment and inspiration through a network of 10 neighborhood library branches, a web-based digital library, a Bookmobile and community-based programs. Branch locations include Aptos, Boulder Creek, Branciforte, Capitola, Downtown Santa Cruz, Felton, Garfield Park, La Selva Beach, Live Oak and Scotts Valley.
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Learn more about SCPL at SantaCruzPL.org or via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube.