On June 21st, we hosted A NIGHT FOR BRIGHT MINDS, officially welcoming Cohort 2022 to the Beedie Luminaries Program and celebrating all 480+ students!
A Night for Bright Minds was nothing short of fantastic! It was a joyous evening filled with laughter, tears, music, and celebration. We loved having our entire community of students, mentors, supporters, and friends and families together again. To commemorate National Indigenous Peoples Day, we began the evening with a smudging ceremony, performed by Beedie Luminaries Indigenous students to cleanse the space of negative energy and create a sacred space. The evening included a very special and inspirational fire-side chat with Cynthia Germanotta, co-founder of the Born this Way Foundation and Cindy Beedie, where they discussed youth mental health.
We were excited to officially welcome 140 high school graduates and 17 SPARK students (Single Parent Awards for Resilience & Knowledge) to the program – the largest intake yet!!! In addition to presenting Cohort 2022 with their certificates, Founder, Ryan Beedie also presented the Beedie Luminaries’ Annual Recognition Awards to 52 recipients from Cohorts 2019, 2020, and 2021! These awards recognize our students’ exceptional accomplishments in the areas of academic achievement, peer leadership, and meaningful contributions to our program and communities.
A huge congratulations to all of our amazing recipients, we are so proud of you:
FOUNDER'S AWARD:
Michelle Yang (2019), Adriana Zaharijevic (2020), Ada Jan (2021)
PROGRAM AMBASSADOR AWARD:
Polina Petlitsyna (2019), Julia Townsend (2020), Amanda Aquino (2021)
PEER LEADER AWARD:
Zan Jawaid (2019), Madelynn Hutchinson (2020), Sara Kourkmas (2021)
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS:
Cohort 2019:
Queen Alexis, Ivy Liao, Anna Riminchan, Chloe Gray, Chenille Wong, Sally Jiao, Clay Meng, Aamba Chavis, Raven Arly Gonzales, Polina Petlitsyna, Hadil Al Fares, Jaashing He
Julia Townsend, Kaitlin Yeo, Agartu Ali, Ashley U, Christina Lam, Bettina Karl, Madison Brown, Lucy Luo, Joanna Luo, Melody Weng, Lola Rabinovitch, Komal Hayre, Kaitlin Law, Victoria Patenaude, Tessa Brown Jones, Sarah Azad Manjiri, Minjin Kim, Sienna Nargang-White
Cohort 2021:
Naba Naqvi, Muhammad Masood Yousuf, Zhaoyu (Lucy) Wang, Xiaoqui (Estelle) Pu, Kyra Steinthorson, Kayla Wen, Niroshan Benjamin, Houria Afshar Moghaddam, Rama Altaleb, Amanda Aquino, Lara Albahadeli, Cadence (Cady) Gai, Janaeye Baher, James Fazeli-Sinaki
SPARK 2021:
Avital Kline, Sonya Prasad
We were also honoured to present the following 2022 Scholarship Awards within the Beedie Luminaries Program:
Gordon B. Shrum Scholarships:
Ammar Arain, Cain Tipton, Glitter-Lynn Esquivias, Jack Al Awad Tedder, Tara Yavari, Will Symington
Vistara Elevate Award:
Oliyad (Samir) Suleiman Ali
Christie & David Garofalo Award:
Alimatou Ba
ZLC Women in Finance Award:
Maggie Pugosa
Trulioo STEM and IT Award:
Abigail Joseph, Jaida Weber
The event concluded with some of our Beedie Luminaries performing “You Can Count On Me” by Bruno Mars.
Thank you to everyone who attended, both in person and virtually, and a huge congratulations to the 2022 Cohort!