South Brunswick Kids Compete In Public Speaking Event At Library

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — Here are photos of the 23 South Brunswick third graders who participated in the South Brunswick Library Foundation's Young Orators' Competition, held this past Sunday at the library.

At registration, the students were asked to choose from three topics to speak about: Building Community, The Environment and Social Media. They also had to write a 150-word essay about the chosen topic.

Dressed in their best and seated in rows facing an audience of friends and family, each of the children took a turn to speak for about 10 minutes in the large meeting room at the library on Kingston Lane.

This is a new competition just launched this year at the South Brunswick Library, and was open to local children in third, fourth and fifth grades. There were first-, second- and third-place winners for each grade level. All participants received a T-shirt and a certificate of achievement. The third graders were the last group to compete on Sunday, and they are pictured above.

The Library Foundation hopes to do it again next January.

“Public speaking is a critical skill that is best practiced early in a student’s career,” said Bina Mehta, event chair.

Mehta said the goal of the event was to help young students build skills to speak and write creatively and confidently. Children’s head librarian Matt Kirschner said he was truly surprised at how each of the third graders spoke to the audience with courage and composure, and added that it was not an easy choice for the judges.

The three third-grade winners were:

1st Place Aanya Sabharwal of Dutch Neck Elementary School, speaking on the topic of Building Community

2nd Place Sathvika Santhosh of Brooks Crossing School, speaking on the topic of the Environment

3rd Place Kimaya Joshi of Indian Fields School, speaking on the topic of Social Media