WEYBRIDGE — Weybridge resident Narges Anzali, a ninth-grader at Middlebury Union High School, has been selected as the winner of the inaugural National Library Legislative Day Teen Contest. The NLLD Teen Contest is a joint venture between the Vermont Library Association and the Vermont School Library Association to capture stories about the positive impact libraries have on the lives of Vermont teens, and to train the next generation of library advocates. 
Contest entrants were asked the question, “What do Vermont’s libraries mean to you?” As part of the winning response, Anzali said that “libraries have always been a place of comfort, and a place where I could be myself in a world which often told me that what I was, what I am, is wrong. In my childhood, as an Iranian immigrant living in a majority white community, the library was the only place where I could be anything I wanted. I could read stories with main characters just like me, who understood the kinds of food I ate and the language I spoke.”
Anzali and an adult chaperone will get a free trip to Washington, D.C., on May 3-5, to join Vermont’s librarian delegation at National Library Legislative Day. On May 4, Anzali and other attendees will receive advocacy training at Georgetown University with staff from the American Library Association and other organizations. On May 5, participants will put their advocacy skills to work with staff from the officesof Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch.