Tangipahoa Parish Librarian Barry Bradford announced Brooklyn Warner as the 2024 African American Honorary Achievement Award recipient.
“This year a record number of very impressive young people have been nominated for this award,” Mr Bradford said. “Her accomplishments both in and out of Brooklyn’s schools are outstanding, and she embodies the African American Honorary Achievement Award.”
Brooklyn Warner will receive the award at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Amite Library Branch. In addition, all other nominees will also be recognized at the ceremony.
As a freshman at Hammond High School Magnet School, Brooklyn was nominated by Brenna Rushing.
Rushing said, “I first met Brooklyn several years ago when I was a substitute at her school. I saw a spark in her, but one of her volleyball coaches… I didn't have the pleasure of getting to know her better until I was 20. I was immediately impressed by her way of life and even wanted to take her daughter into my care.”
Brooklyn Warner is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate® program and has a 4.0 grade point average at Hammond High School.
She is a member of the Hammond High School Volleyball Team, Beta Club, Newspaper Club, Year Book Club, Tobotics Team, Girl Scouts, Hammond Air Show, Keep Hammond Beautiful, and Beauty and Brains 7th and 8th Grade FLL Challenge Robotics Team .
Brooklyn created a free supplies closet at Hammond Eastside so students going through a tough time don't have to worry about going without school supplies. She was able to secure and raise enough funds to provide over $2,000 in free school supplies, including pencils, pens, loose-leaf paper, headphones, binders, calculators, folders, notebooks, and highlighters. This project was funded by her community outreach efforts and by making and selling air fresheners to help fund this service project.
During May 2023, Brooklyn and her fellow Beauty and Brains robotics team participated in a month-long service-a-thon. The first weekend was spent in Hammond working with Keeping Hammond Beautiful to clean up the town, and the second weekend was spent playing bingo and hosting a game day with seniors in Phoenix in Hammond. During the third week, we hosted a reading session. They completed their month-long journey at Hammond's Early Childhood Library, organizing and packaging meal bags for the community with Beacon Light Church.
Through Girl Scouts, Brooklyn collects and organizes toys for children in foster care, collects pet supplies for animal shelters, collects comfort items for women in domestic violence shelters, I have participated in many service events, including court activities for DC Reeves students. Caroling and game nights at elementary schools and various nursing homes, a supply drive for victims of Hurricane Ida, the long-standing Christmas Children's Box operation that adopted local families for Christmas, and donations to local food pantries. They participated in food drives, collecting Christmas presents for local seniors, back-to-school clean-up activities, community clean-up activities, and more. In Brooklyn, Girl Scouts alone average about 40 hours of service per year. Brooklyn is in her 10th year of scouting, so she has well over 400 service hours in Girl Scouts alone.
She plans to graduate as a full IB Diploma graduate in 2027 while developing her knowledge of robotics. Her goals in college are to get a perfect ACT score of 36 and she will enroll at MIT or LSU to earn a degree in Computer/Software Engineering. After graduating from her university, she hopes to land at Google or NASA and start a career in engineering.
