DINUBA – For three Dinuba teens, a deep appreciation for serving the community is at the heart of everything they do.
Kylie Alvarado, Sanjogpreet Pannu and Kylie Lopez, all seniors at Dinuba High School, are the 2026 finalists for Dinuba Teenage Citizen of the Year, an annual scholarship and special recognition awarded by the Dinuba Woman’s Club. The young women were selected as finalists based on their academic achievements, leadership in the community and commitment to service.
Although all three have varying dreams for their futures, they each have loved their time in Dinuba and are driven to help others. Additionally, while their involvement in the community differs in some ways, they are all leaders in the school’s Associated Student Body, serve on the Link Crew and are members in multiple clubs.
For Alvarado, much of what she does outside of school centers around her love of swimming.
A varsity member of both the DHS swim team and water polo team, Alvarado has been swimming competitively since she was 7 years old. In the summers, she helps teach local children how to swim as part of the recreational competitive swim team known as the Dinuba Aqua Emps.
Alvarado hopes to attend the University of California, Berkeley after graduation to major in public health and eventually go on to medical school. She wants to become a dermatologist because, as she said, “I just really like helping people.”
“I think it’s a really great opportunity to be able to make people feel comfortable in their own skin and the way they are, so I want to just give back, and hopefully people can come to me and be able to feel confident in the way they are,” Alvarado said.
Pannu also has aspirations of attending a four-year university with even more schooling in her future, as her goal is to become an attorney.
As a first-generation student, Pannu’s parents have always taught her that education opens doors, and she has always been passionate about advocating for others to have those kinds of opportunities, she said.
“I think right now in our world we have so many issues and so many people who don’t receive justice, and I think being able to speak up for them and fight for justice for these people is something that I believe is my purpose,” Pannu said.
Pannu loves to be involved in the Dinuba community because of all it has done for her parents. She said she always tries to lend a helping hand wherever she can. There have been times in her life where she has seen the same not be done for her parents, but it has been in Dinuba that they found a caring community.
Much like Pannu, Lopez’s career goals and desire to help others stem from firsthand experience.
After her older brother died from a fentanyl overdose in 2020, Lopez, along with Pannu, started an awareness campaign called One Pill Will Kill, teaching teens and other community members about the dangers of opioids.
This has led Lopez to a passion for community health and mental health awareness, and she serves as president of the HOSA and National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) clubs at DHS. Lopez hopes to study psychology at a four-year university and possibly open her own psychiatry practice in the Central Valley.
“I feel like I’ve seen firsthand, after my brother passed away, how important mental health is,” Lopez said. “I feel like it’s just as important as physical health, and … I feel like not enough resources are available and I would like to bring it back to the Valley and help our community out.”
Though just one of the three will be named Teen Citizen of the Year at the Dinuba Woman’s Club’s spring event on March 14, all are winners in the eyes of the club members.
