As a frequent visitor of the Saratoga Library, senior creative arts events lead Manlin Zhang decided to join the library’s Teen Advisory Board (TAB) in her freshman year as a way to give back to the community by hosting community events.
“It’s a support system for a lot of teens in our area which I think is really important,” Zhang said.
Zhang is one of more than two dozen students involved in TAB. TAB is dedicated to creating fun, informative and engaging events for teens at the Saratoga Library. They organize both in-person and virtual events, such as movie nights, write-a-thons and career days. The board consists of two co-presidents and five committees: Collaborative Events and Website, Social Events, Showcase Events, Creative Arts Events and Speaker Series Events.
This year, the two co-presidents are senior Avi Taneja and junior Nicole Hao. SHS students serving as committee leads on the TAB are collaborative events co-lead and website lead senior Dhanush Ekollu; collaborative events co-lead senior Hayden Fu; social events lead junior Viki Toram; showcase events lead senior Han Yeung; and creative arts events lead Zhang.
Eleven other students from the school are members of TAB’s various, event-organizing subteams:
- Collaborative Events: senior Arthur Gabrilovich and sophomore Aarav Kalra.
- Creative Arts Events: juniors Navya Chawla, Aditi Kankanwadi and Florence Wei.
- Social Events: sophomore Aakarsh Ekollu and senior Kayla Nguyen.
- Speaker Series: senior Aneri Shah.
- Showcase Events: sophomores Dhatri Iyer, Rohit Thomas and Anya Taneja.
“I like how the TAB is about having dedication towards making the lives of your peers better along with having good organizational and communication skills,” Taneja said. “My favorite part about being a member of the board is the community and how much fun we have coming up with and attending TAB events.”
Some upcoming events include the Fall Coffeehouse Talent Show on Nov. 15 and the Halloween Movie Night on Nov. 30. Board members brainstorm these ideas in their in-person monthly meetings, where they also reflect back at successful events in previous years.
One brand new subproject of the TAB is called “The Butterfly Effect,” a multimedia arts journal which will have both a fall and spring issue. Additionally all high school students can submit their art online to be featured on the Santa Clara County Library District Instagram and blog.
“The TAB is a chance to get leadership experience, and you get to plan events from the ground up, with support from the library. These are skills that can carry forward into the professional world,” Zhang said.
