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Chaparral High junior Karina Kopikar honored as Outstanding Phoenix Youth Leader for District 6
Summary
Karina Kopikar, a junior at Chaparral High School, received the Outstanding Phoenix Youth Leader of the Year (District 6) recognition after describing her work founding My Tasty Table, donating 4,000 books through Loving Libraries, and volunteering with unhoused, foster and refugee children.
Karina Kopikar, a junior at Chaparral High School in the Scottsdale Unified School District, said she was "so honored to be named the Outstanding Phoenix Youth Leader of the Year for District 6."
The award recognition came during a brief remarks segment in which an event presenter praised Kopikar’s academic focus and community work. The presenter said, "Karina is a special young lady. She is very focused on academics and yet equally focused on the community at large and basically making the world a better place."
Kopikar told the audience that she founded the nonprofit My Tasty Table as a freshman to teach children and families affected by food insecurity how to eat healthily on a budget. "As a freshman, I founded the nonprofit My Tasty Table in order to teach children and families impacted by food insecurity about healthy eating on a budget," she said. She also described work with an organization she identified as Loving Libraries, saying she was promoted to national ambassador after donating 4,000 books across Arizona.
"So now my role includes training younger ambassadors to start their own chapters, and I'm also tasked with a lot of their public speaking and fundraising events," Kopikar said, describing her responsibilities with Loving Libraries. She also said she works with the unhoused community through My Tasty Table, volunteers with the Swift Youth Foundation with foster children, helps give books to children in hospitals through Loving Libraries and tutors refugee students.
The presenter added personal praise: "Wherever she lands, that organization is going to be very blessed and very lucky. I think that whatever she chooses to do with her life, she's going to do great things." Kopikar said she is president of her school's mock trial team and president-elect of the theater program, and that she hopes to practice family law.
The remarks were ceremonial, recognizing Kopikar’s youth leadership and volunteer activities rather than establishing new policy or funding.
