Way to Go! Commack student named Female Leader of the Year by CTeen
Sarah Strent, a senior at Commack High School, was recently named Female Leader of the Year at the CTeen International Shabbaton. Credit: Malky Gold/The Chai Center
A Commack High School student has been named Female Leader of the Year by CTeen, a network for Jewish teens.
Sarah Strent, a senior, was selected by about 2,700 peers worldwide at the CTeen International Shabbaton in Manhattan. CTeen, which is composed of 625 chapters internationally, strives to inspire teens to give back to their communities and environment with an emphasis on character development.
Strent is a leader in CTeen's West Suffolk Chapter, which is based at The Chai Center in Dix Hills. She is also an international leader and a member of CTeen's tristate regional board.
"I was absolutely overjoyed," said Strent, 17. "Every positive emotion was going through my head."
To get selected, Strent was first named one of three finalists through online voting, then delivered a speech at the Shabbaton, where attendees deposited coins into the box representing the finalist they wanted to win.
"We are so immensely proud," The Chai Center's youth director, Rabbi Dovid Weinbaum, said. "Sarah has helped us on a local level create programs like cooking for needy families, packing gifts for children in hospitals and creating a bowl-a-thon for special needs kids and children with cancer."
Strent is also co-captain of a team that participates in the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation's Long Island Take Steps Walk and has been named the foundation's 2020 "Shining Star."
— MICHAEL R. EBERT
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
