Table of Contents

• YIF 2025 Ends with Awards and Celebration!

• Thank You!

• THE YIF EXHIBITION at Queen’s Education Library

• YIF STORYTIME

• MUSIC  & ECO ART ACTIVITY AT THE AWARDS

• YIF IN THE NEWS

• Tell a Teacher!

YIF 2025 Ends with Awards and Celebration!

In fall, 2025, Youth Imagine the Future gave presentations or workshops on climate solutions to 90 classes. They sparked class discussions, led to research, and we hope, inspired our youth to feel encouraged about the future. We need youth to become stewards of the planet.

Every year, some of the youth work to show their ideas of a more sustainable future with social justice through art or creative writing (short stories.)  We opened up the submissions portal mid-October 2025 and stories began to roll in, then photos of art.  We ended up with 160 creative submissions!

In November, about 50 jury members looked at and read the submissions, then scored them, using the criteria posted on our website under “For Students.” There was a lot of discussion and struggle to decide which pieces would be honoured. Really, they were all great. Students are all at different places on their journey to understanding the complexities of a sustainable future, but their hard work and talent was obvious.

On Sunday, December 14, 2025 Youth Imagine the Future gave out 46 awards to some brilliant young people.  Miigwech and thank you to Meagan Gilpin, Teen and YA librarian, and the warm and friendly staff at KFPL for donating the venue at Central Public Library on Johnson St. for the two awards ceremonies, making it all possible. 

The First Place winning Short Story Writer was Ipsa Khalal in grade 8, from Calvin Park PS.  Her winning short story, “A Painted Future,” tells of three teens who lead a fight to save a mural dedicated to the environmental movement. The mural was about to be painted over for an advertisement. The writing was beautiful, and the story, highly believable. Check it out on the YIF website. Her future Toronto has green rooftops of buildings and electric buses. Here is a snippet from her story:

“I headed straight to my favourite spot in the whole school—the eco garden. It was filled with the calming scent of flowers, the fresh air from the newly planted trees, and my personal favorite, the soft hum of the solar flowers rotating towards the sun.”

Question: Why doesn’t every school have solar rooftops and an eco garden like Ipsa’s school? How calming would those eco gardens be? 

The First Place Junior Art winner was Isaac Caron, grade 8, from, École secondaire publique Mille-Îles for “A Better Future, Now” which centers a large public library covered in colourful solar panels made from cellulose, with local farmers outside, a green roof and an appealing green apartment building behind.

First Place Senior Art winner was Ellora Outwater, grade 12, Sydenham HS for “A Harmonious Existence.”  There is a lot hiding in her artwork. The eagle represents strength, courage and wisdom and Indigenous wisdom. It shows harmony between nature on one wing and electrical wires on the other wing for technology. The far background shows a beautiful cityscape with solar and wind energy, the farming includes trees and biochar.  Ellora hand beaded the strawberries growing up the sides to connect this futurescape with happy memories of her own family strawberry picking every year.

We can’t resist sharing a few more photos of some of the amazing art. Here is the 2^nd Place art for Juniors, a life-sized cloak, cut and sewn from old white blankets that the young Kingston artist, Rowan Wicke, found at a community “Buy Nothing” event at Skeleton Park. She recommends making things by hand, especially with friends, and after she sewed this cloak, she painted it to match the indicator species, the Cecropia Moth. The lighter cecropia moth died out during the era of coal energy, Rowan wrote, because they stood out easily for bird predators against the grey soot-covered walls. She talked about the importance of community events, of handmade items and costumes for Hallowe’en, for protecting our pollinators’ habitats even with the energy we choose.  Here is a photo of her with Ted Hsu, who gave her the award and posted it on his website.

3^rd Place Junior Art award went to Maia O’Boyle, grade 9 at Granite Ridge Education Centre for “There’s Still Time,” given to her by Dean Amy Burns of Queen’s Faculty of Education The figures and buildings are tiny and perfect in this project made of 2 wine glasses and found objects. The upper layer shows a polluted town, but the bottom shows children playing in a better future, flying a kite.

The 4^th Place Junior Art award went to Isobel Greenlees of Loughborough PS for “Mirror of the Future”, given to her by South Frontenac Councillor Randy Ruttan.  It is set in the country, Yemen. She painted “an office and apartment building with AuREUS solar panels for windows and doors and to power the building. On balconies they grow native plants that will later be planted in nature. Outside is a SmartFlower solar panel to help power the community using less fossil fuels. There is a greenhouse where the community grows food for each other, an accessible playground where children with disabilities can play with other kids, and a picnic table and games for families to sit and play. The mothers of two children are walking together and e-bikes are used for transportation. My artwork shows a hopeful future where people live sustainably and everyone belongs.”

The People’s Choice Award : We had to empty our little mailbox several times because it was so stuffed with votes from visitors to the gallery this year.  Congratulations to Mateo I. Sanchez Ayala of LaSalle IS, grade 8 for his wonderful, textured painting of a cyclist in the future looking out, titled, “Life is a Circle.” Mateo had come up to the front of the grand piano room at Central Public Library to receive the 5^th Place Junior Art award, presented to him by Kingston Councillor Wendy Stephen .  Just when he was about to return to his family, Ms. Stephan announced, “Not so fast.” He looked back, confused. “There’s one more thing,”  and proceeded to award him with the People’s Choice Award.

Senior artist Caitlin Ball of Sydenham HS won 2^nd Place for “Postscript” carved on plexiglass with colour added. Inspired by “Braiding Sweetgrass,” by  Robin Wall Kimmerer , this art shows a girl in the future in a restored wetlands full of cattails with the fireflies returning. The 3 Sisters are on either side, corn, beans and pumpkins, and in the distance,  there is renewable energy above a maglev train hinting at better energy choices in the future.

The 2^nd Place Short Story award went to Divyesh Jayapranthesha of Ernestown IS, for “The City that Breathes,” an exciting tale well worth reading on our website.

Other inspiring young writer’s honoured included:

3rd Place Short Story award went to Isla Oatway of Loughborough PS for the story, "It Left Us the Light."

4th Place Short Story award was given to Fares Alsalehi of Calvin Park for, "A Dream Come True."

5th Place Short Story award was received by Kai Knutsen for his story, "The Last Wild Place." Catch Kai's interview on Global News "Building Bright Futures."

We hope these young writers will continue to write!

3^rd Place Senior Art went to Charlie McGowan, LCVI for “Hope.” She dyed her paper with avocado pits, turmeric, maple leaves, and berries, created a quilt border to represent community, and wrote about the need for hope for a future with nature and human rights restored, including freedom for children in Gaza.

4^th Place Senior Award went to “Snapshot of the Future” a papier maché sculpture painted with scenes inside and out by Isabella Laing of LCVI.

5th Place Senior Art Award went to Lana Wilson of Holy Cross SS. Her shark robot is a plastic digester, with hydro turbines in the fins to power it. It will ingest plastic, including ghost nets on coral, and the mealworms inside will digest it, turning it into C02 and water. Take note, inventors!"

Thank You!

A special thank you to all of our sponsors without whom this festival would not be possible: Jon Dessau happily gave out the two top awards of $500 from the Kingston Community Credit Union, Queen’s Faculty of Education sent Dean Amy Burns with $200 as awards, The Limestone District School Board sent Dan Hendry , The Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board sent Superintendent Sonya Melim, Sustainable Kingston Director Julia Stroud gave out several awards, 350 Kingston sent Gavin Hutchinson,  Judy Wyatt came from Seniors for Climate Action Now. KFPL’s Meagan Gilpin gave out several awards, as did Mae Whalen from the Kingston School of Art. South Frontenac Councillor Randy Ruttan came to give out awards and Councilor Adam Turcotte gave a heartfelt welcoming speech to all the students.  Thank you to everyone and those whom I’m forgetting!

Thank you to all our donors: Minotaur Gifts, Black Dog Hospitality, Harlowe Green, The Cookery, Novel Idea, Improbable Escapes, Art Noise, The Screening Room, and Sustainable Kingston as well as individual donors. Jim Brown and Joan Lee donated about 50 copies of the graphic book version of “Braiding Sweetgrass” as awards and for participating schools! (We are still delivering some.) We are deeply grateful to the Community Foundation of Kingston & Area for the grant we received to run this, and to the Kingston School of Art for mentoring and partnering with us for the fourth year. 

Finally, miigwech to Rebecca Carnevale, who takes a our newsletter, a file of photos, creates a Beehiv newsletter, and then sends it out to all of you.  It takes a village…

THE YIF EXHIBITION at Queen’s Education Library

The YIF exhibition turned the Queen’s Faculty of Education Library into an art gallery December 3-13th. The librarians and staff at the Queen’s Education Library at McArthur Hall were exceptionally kind, warm and helpful.  A million thanks to Librarians Nathalie Soini and Shelley Woods and staff for letting us fill the sunny space with student art and writing, and hold our Storytime evening event there. What a gorgeous library that is! As well, we thank all the students who were studying in the library as our visitors walked around quietly, admiring youth art. Your powers of concentration, (and the earbuds) were great.

YIF STORYTIME

9 of our top young solarpunk writers came to Queen’s Education Library at McArthur College on Thursday, December 11^th from 4:30 – 6:30 pm to give a public reading. The seats were nearly filled, the students were shy but excellent, and the applause was hearty. Afterward, everyone spread out to admire the YIF festival art. Here are a couple of photos from the event:

MUSIC  & ECO ART ACTIVITY AT THE AWARDS

Miigwech, nya:weh, thank you to the creative artist Gwen Smith who lugged old hardcover books headed for the dump to our Awards Ceremonies at Central Public Library on Dec. 14^th , 2025. About 2 dozen young people visited her on the main floor and created something new and fascinating. Thank you so much, Gwen!

A huge thank you to Tim Sheffield for coming and singing his own original environmental songs to the audience before the Junior Art awards. It made people relax and smile, and look around the room at the wonderful art. Miigwech, Tim!

YIF IN THE NEWS

We were featured in the Kingstonist in December. Read more.

Tell a Teacher!

On June 1st we will open up booking for September school visits to give YIF presentations.  Send an email to YIF at    [email protected]

Enjoy the snow!

The YIF Board of Directors!

Come find us on Facebook and Instagram and at Bluesky @youthimaginefuture.bsky.social.