The Cupertino Youth Activity Board and the FUHSD Intradistrict Council hosted the third annual Cupertino Teen Resource Fair at Cupertino Main Street on March 21 from noon to 3 p.m. The event featured an array of booths promoting summer camps, internships and organizations. These organizations covered topics ranging from advocacy for women’s rights in India to donating excess fruits to local food pantries.
According to City of Cupertino Recreational Coordinator Robert Kaufman, the event was originally created in 2024 to replace the Summer Jobs Fair and Bobateeno after they were eliminated due to funding cuts.
Sophomore Ananya Vijay Parakimeethal joined Recreation Event Volunteers last year after volunteering for one day at the Earth and Arbor Day Festival. Inspired by her interactive booth at the event, which involved pedaling a bicycle to blend lemons to lemonade, she registered to become a year-long volunteer for the program. She was invited to the event to informally share her experiences and promote the program to other high schoolers.
“I’m trying to tell the community that the people I meet in REV are super chill, ” Parakimeethal said. “It’s a really unique experience, especially because you get to make little kids smile and help them enjoy all these events.”
As a part of the marketing team helping establish this event, junior Shashwatch Dinesh worked alongside others in the YAB to decide which organizations would be allowed to participate. According to Dinesh, the event planning began at the start of the year, and he worked in collaboration with the IDC to help the event run smoothly. He believes this event is great for outreach since the event is heavily publicized through social media and city newsletters.
“If you are part of an organization that wants to reach other people, this is a great way to do that, because there aren’t too many organizations here that it gets overwhelming for people to check each booth,” Dinesh said. “You can have a personal conversation with each booth, rather than them just seeing a website or poster.”
Although the event was organized for teens, it attracted people of all ages, like content creator and comedian Jay Wey. Wey stumbled across the event after his young children wanted to play with toys set up by the event organizers. He says he believes that these events are great for high schoolers looking to get more involved in their community. Kaufman echoes this sentiment, adding that in the future they plan to scale up the size of the event, while still focusing on providing teens with resources.
“We want this event to be bigger in the future and provide more to the community,” Kaufman said. “The goal of naming this event the Teen Resource Fair is that we didn’t want to put ourselves in a box of what we could provide.”
High schoolers promote their nonprofit, Empower Her, to fairgoers. Photo | Shreejay Arja