Pictured: Bernadette N. is the 2022 Boys and Girls Clubs of Sarasota and DeSoto Counties Youth of the Year. Photo by Wyatt Kostygan.

Our community is filled with many incredible young people doing such amazing things. This summer, we are featuring some of these young people in our Thursday Family & Education edition. Each of the students we are highlighting has been chosen as one of this year’s SRQ Magazine’s top youth leaders based on their values, determination and outstanding achievements in different aspects of their lives in and out of school.

Bernadette is the 2022 Boys & Girls Clubs of Sarasota and DeSoto Counties’ Youth of the Year. Enrolled in Riverview High School’s International Baccalaureate Program where she is in the top 4% of her class, Bernadette manages a busy schedule as President of National Honor Society and Speech & Debate and Vice President of Papillon Club. In 2021, Bernadette was given a letter of Commendation for the National Merit Scholarship Program and was honored with the Anne Frank Humanitarian Award. This year, Bernadette was named a Coca-Cola National Scholar and was honored with the Princeton Prize in Race Relations. Through her work with the Boys & Girls Clubs, Bernadette founded her own non-profit, SHARE Wholeness, to address the prevalence of food deserts in Sarasota County. She would go on to draft SB 1450 and HB 1311 to address policy change on this issue; both bills have secured bipartisan support in Tallahassee.

We asked Bernadette about her plans for the future.

"I hope to be in a position to empower others the way the community has empowered me. Hopefully that will be somewhere in the fields of either healthcare or law," she said. "I’m grateful to be in this position because I want to be a beacon of light for others who may be struggling. I want them to know that they can direct their own lives. It doesn't have to be directed by others."

Pictured: Bernadette N. is the 2022 Boys and Girls Clubs of Sarasota and DeSoto Counties Youth of the Year. Photo by Wyatt Kostygan.