I Cried Today...A Story About Amazing Livermore Youths

So today started out pretty typical for me. Tuesdays are my days to work at home and do city council stuff. So I started my day out writing my to-do list and then working on a paper for school titled “Teaching the Millennium Generation.” The Millennium generation refers to the group of students soon to or recently graduated from high school. 

This group of students is said to be technologically savvy, regimented, and egocentric. Researchers have great concern for the lack of humaneness in this current generation. Teachers have great concerns about this generation's ability to relate one on one in social groups. Much has been written about this group as it relates to being self centered as well as bullying. I will come back to this later in this blog, for now back to my day.

The first event of my day was to go to and talk with a group of students about health care professions. What an honor that was. I met a future nurse, a future massage therapist, and a future fireman. I also met a student who will not be a future dental hygienist. As I told the students, when you are looking to your career path, it is key to choose those careers that are not good fits so identifying those professions you do not want are equally as important. I was amazed by the passion and exuberance of this group of students.

The second stop of my day was the . This event was designed to honor the various heroes in our community who are striving toward designing solutions and exploring innovation. Toward the end of the program, Dale Kaye introduced two teenagers who won the youth award, Erica Gruidi and Kendall Sanchez. These two girls are the reason for my tears. 

These girls are your typical high school students and cheerleaders at . As “typical teens” they should be primarily interested in what their peers think of them, fitting in with the crowd, and maintaining the status quo — but not these two.

These girls took their passion for cheerleading and started a group called the Shooting Stars. This is Livermore High's special education cheer squad. I was humbled by what Erika said in her speech. She stated that when she started this, she was concerned that her peers might mock the cheer squad or tease them. The reaction to this squad was quite the opposite. We were treated with a video of the Shooting Stars first performance at Livermore High. After the performance the thunderous applause was deafening. The school embraced these students in a way I am not sure anyone imagined.

Hence, my tears. What these two young ladies did for so many people.

First, they provided these students with a platform to perform and the skills to do so. They gave these kids an opportunity to shine in a way that most of us will never experience. 

Second, they helped these students on the way to becoming embraced by the entire student population.

Third, they provided the almost 2,000 students the opportunity to appreciate our differences and embrace these students. They demonstrated how very special and unique we all can be.

Fourth, they afforded the adults to see how very special the youth of Livermore are.

For me, they reminded me of the importance of never stereotyping anyone — especially not an entire generation of students.

These are just five of many lessons learned through the actions of these two young ladies. These girls demonstrated more humanness and spirit than many adults ever will. Kudos to you both and thank you for making Livermore such a wonderful place to live.

For more information on this program, here is a link to the article in the Independent Newspaper.

To see the Shooting Stars perform view the attached YouTube video.

For those of you reading, please feel free to comment and add stories of other exceptional youths in this community.

Thank you for reading.

Laureen Turner