If you walked into a Knit and Lit club meeting, you’d likely find a relaxed group of friends sharing the stirring details of their most recent read while de-stressing with a casual knitting session. Every Thursday this group convenes every Thursday, and Sophie Leung is the force behind each meeting.
It’s “not like a traditional book club where everyone reads the same book,” Sophie explains.; during Knit and Lit, we “have the freedom where you can make what you want, read what you want, and it’s just a place to share what you did.” “Crocheting is not only a way to relieve your stress, but also a way to create something useful to you. It’s also sustainable, which is something I really want to promote,” she adds. This multifaceted club has been able to tackle a myriad of topics all in one lunch period.
In her four years at SMHS, Sophie has taken on roles as the Red Cross Club Vice President, the Sophomore Class Secretary, and a two-time Class President, and has remained a student at the forefront of Leadership. With all that’s on her plate, it’s understandable that she’d found a club focused on destressing combined with one of her prime passions: reading. She explains that “the idea of seeing people’s lives–different experiences that I can’t live by myself” is thrilling and eye-opening. Her favorite book is “The Glass Castle,” and she “loves any book with the theme of persistence.”
“There are not a huge number of high school students that I would take book recommendations from, but Sophie is one of them,” comments Mr. Pirie, the teacher of Sophie’s favorite class, AP Literature teacher. “The fact that she’s so well-read comes out in a lot of different ways around campus, it comes out in her work in class, it comes out in her work with leadership.” He says that Sophie has “the empathy that you gain only from appreciating other people’s stories.”
Around campus, you’ve likely seen her coordinating a myriad of events such as the Senior Sunrise or the uplifting Post-it notes found on all of our lockers right before finals. Her tremendous and consistent involvement with the school is something that she’s commonly known for. Her motivation to be so involved in the school community was that San Mateo was a “welcoming community,” and a place where “you can be friends with anyone–it’s not cliquey.”
Caitie De Jesus, a member of the Renaissance leadership team and a good friend to Sophie explains that “she’s very driven and organized, very devoted to her role and a great leader–always focused on helping everyone else.”
Off-campus, Sophie has been heavily involved in local organizations such as AAMPLIFY, an organization catered towards advocacy for Asian Americans in the Bay Area, through which she’s met with local senators and members of the SF Board of Education. This sparked an interest in local social justice advocacy, a passion that she hopes to continue pursuing at UCSB in the fall, where she’ll be majoring in political science.
In her time at San Mateo, Sophie has had an incredible impact on the campus, both as a dedicated student and as a kind, empathetic person. As Mr. Pirie explains best, “when she moves on from San Mateo, it’ll be a loss for us and a big win for somebody else.”