Samantha Palmerin, From Escondido Charter High School, Wins 10th Annual Essay Contest

Samantha Palmerin, a senior at Escondido Charter High School, bested 175 other entrants in winning the 10^th Annual A Bridge for Kids Essay Contest.  This is the first time that a student from Escondido Charter has won the event and earned the $2,500 first prize.  Congratulations to Samantha!

This year students were asked “What makes you unique and how has this uniqueness shaped you into the person you are today?”  Essays were submitted to A Bridge for Kids and scored by a panel of 30 judges.  Winners were picked based on the creativity, originality, clarity and overall impact of the essay. 

Finishing a close second place was A Bridge for Kids sponsored student, Joel Castro, a senior at Hoover High School.  Joel won $1,500 for his submission.  In third through fifth place respectively were, Solange Uwimana (Hoover High School), Trang Truong (Patrick Henry High School) and Anh Nguyen (Crawford High School).  Each of these students won a $500 Amazon gift card.

Shanon Yeow, the first ever to crack the top-10 from Otay Ranch High School, came in 6^th place.  Hilary Nguyen, from Kearny School of College Connections (another new school represented for the first time in our winning group) finished 7^th and A Bridge for Kids student Christine Doan, a senior at the Preuss School, UCSD, took home a $100 gift card for her 8^th place entry.  

Rounding out the top 10 were Kelly Phan (Crawford) and Xitali Monarrez (Gompers Preparatory Academy).  In total, a record 8 schools were represented in the top 10 with only Hoover and Crawford having more than one finalist. 

As we excitedly look forward to our 11^th Annual Contest, we want to congratulate all of our winners, both past and present, graciously thank all of our judges who spent countless hours reading each of the essays, and send our appreciation to our most generous donors who have helped us make this event so special to those that participate for the past decade.