This powerful Google doodle was designed by a high school student

Friday's Google doodle, which depicts a crowd of people of different ages, religions, ethnicities and abilities, linked arm-in-arm, sends a powerful message of unity — and it was designed by a high school student.

The doodle of the day was the national finalist of last year's "Doodle 4 Google" competition, which solicited entries from young people across the country, asking them to come up with a doodle that represented their vision for the future.

The winning doodle design was a submission from Stratford, Connecticut, high school sophomore Sarah Harrison, NBC Connecticut reported on Friday. Harrison titled her doodle "A Peaceful Future."

"My future is a world where we can all learn to love each other despite our religion, gender, race, ethnicity, or sexuality," Harrison wrote in the statement that accompanied her doodle submission. "I dream of a future where everyone is safe and accepted wherever they go, whoever they are."

Harrison's design earned her a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 Google grant for technology education at her high school. She also got a trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California to meet with the doodle team.

She said that when she designed the doodle, she "was thinking of how there's a lot of animosity toward diverse communities of people in the world right now," NBC Connecticut reported. "So I wanted to draw something that I hoped would show that we can all get along well, and that it's possible for us to be happy with each other. I want everyone try to be more open, accepting and respectful to people."