Girl Scouts lead the way as they find their voices and address the issues most important to them. Activities in the Girl Scout Leadership Experience focus on four key areas (pillars):
- Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
- Outdoors
- Life Skills
- Entrepreneurship
Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place. The stories that follow demonstrate how Girl Scouts of Northern New Jersey are making positive changes in our own community through their take-action Gold Award projects.
Gold Award Girl Scout Gianna addressed the issue of land erosion that is linked to the high mortality rate of sea turtles. With her take-action project, Save Her Eggs (S.H.E.), Gianna created a website and worked to educate the Tuckerton community about the issue, offering advice on how to handle dead or wounded turtles or turtle eggs found in the environment. Throughout the year, and especially prior to nesting season, the Tuckerton Seaport distributes materials containing a QR code that links to her website.
Gold Award Girl Scout Ariel focused her take-action project on the educational needs and rights of students challenged with Dyslexia. She collected and donated learning tools to her local school system and gave presentations to students and parents about available resources to help alleviate the struggles that students dealing with Dyslexia may experience. The Newton Town Council was impressed by her work and issued a proclamation designating October as Dyslexia Awareness Month in town.
Gold Award Girl Scout Kathryn established Empowerment Hikes for women in the Ramsey area, which she designed to increase the knowledge of women in history. After researching leading women in various fields, including STEM, politics, and local history, Kathryn shared their stories during community hiking trips, as well as promoted the hikes and information on social media and in her school.
Gold Award Girl Scout Emma focused on educating her community about the rich history of Armenia and the current struggles of the country’s people in her take-action project, Learn About Armenia. Being of Armenian heritage, Emma’s project was deeply personal. She created a website that includes interviews with Armenian people and showcases their culture, history, art, religion, and education.
Gold Award Girl Scout Rhea named her take-action project, Removing the Filter, and set out to create a social media movement towards building self-confidence and emotional well-being among pre-teens and teens. She hosted a series of local workshops that promoted body positivity and shared activities that could help girls combat negative self-imagery. Rhea highlighted the gaps in her school’s health curriculum regarding these topics and met with school officials to advocate for integrating mental health and body positivity topics into the school curriculum.
Gold Award Girl Scout Sophia sought out to improve awareness of bone marrow donation and increase the number of stem cell donors with her project, Building the Registry. Inspired by her own mother’s need for a stem cell transplant and the journey to find a matching donor, Sophia campaigned to encourage fellow students to attend a swabbing event and register as donors. Her “Be the Match” presentations resulted in bringing more than 65 people to the event.
Gold Award Girl Scout Hadley addressed the lack of awareness of opportunities for women in the field of aviation. Her Women in Flight project aimed at dispelling the myth that aviation is a man's job. Hadley conducted local workshops for women and girls on the topic of aviation with the intent of fostering more interest in the field and inspiring more women to become pilots. She packaged her plans and documents into turnkey kits for hosting additional workshops and provided them to Lincoln Park Airport for distribution.
Gold Award Girl Scout Ishika worked to improve the quality of life for senior citizens in nursing homes by exploring ways to foster social interaction and combat isolation and loneliness. Her project, Social Activities for Seniors, included the creation of self-care kits and activity carts filled with items curated by her community. Ishika led a campaign to encourage fellow high school students to volunteer at the facility and showed them how to host social activities and events among seniors.
Gold Award Girl Scout Riya addressed the waning interest in STEM at her local middle school with Project Revive Math League. She believed that the school’s MathCounts program, which had been eliminated, was a key factor in inspiring students to explore STEM careers. Her efforts to revive it resulted in more than 35 students joining the club. Riya and her former math teacher coached the students into becoming a competitive math team, and her blog about her experiences continues to inspire and instruct other schools towards establishing math clubs.
Gold Award Girl Scout Manasvi focused her take-action project, “Special” Just Means Unique, on addressing the lack of funding for special education programs and the inaccessibility of helpful materials for special needs students. Manasvi collected and distributed fidget toys for students to local schools and hosted a presentation for teachers explaining their use. She petitioned New Jersey government officials asking them to increase funding for special education programs and authored an act for them to pass into law.
Gold Award Girl Scout Olivia addressed a lack of anti-bullying education among third-grade students in her town. Her project, It Starts with You, was designed to help these students identify bullying and learn how to avoid or stop it. Olivia conducted presentations at the school and provided follow-up information for students and teachers to continue their learning. She also helped the students establish a club that will continue to increase awareness of bullying and prevention of it in the future.
Gold Award Girl Scout Sofia raised awareness of pediatric cancer with her Dunk Cancer project and 3K event. She worked to educate her community about pediatric cancer and advocacy with the help of Grace Eline, a cancer survivor from the WITH Grace Initiative. Sofia set up a table at the event where attendees could make cards for pediatric cancer warriors and their families and attach them to care packages. She was able to collect enough items to donate 149 care packages to five different hospitals. In addition, she created a how-to- manual for hosting awareness events, which the WITH Grace organization now has on its website.
Gold Award Girl Scout Cara addressed the need for more hearing people to learn basic signs in American Sign Language (ASL) to respectfully support deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. With her take-action project, Spreading Deaf Awareness and Empowerment, Cara created American Sign Language and deaf culture sensitivity training classes and an awareness video. She held in-person classes to teach basic ASL and increased awareness of hearing challenges by having attendees engage in role-playing situations and group discussions.
Gold Award Girl Scout Shaye focused her take-action project on adapting toys for children with special needs. After earning her Gold Award, she reached out to the Target Corporation to present her ideas for adapting switches on toys. Target’s heads of marketing and product development agreed to meet with her and are showing interest in working with her to develop product improvements. Earning her Gold Award gave Shaye the courage and confidence to take her project further and take additional steps to make the world a better place.
Gold Award Girl Scout Kareena focused her take-action project on the world water crisis. She studied the water crisis in India, created an educational program for middle-school children, and produced a series of podcasts on the subject during which she interviewed leaders and experts on the issue. She reached out to the Eileen Fisher Corporation to learn more about their work in water conservation and to interview their staff, which availed her of the opportunity to participate at a conference with the Social Consciousness team at Eileen Fisher and create a video presentation that was shown company-wide. Kareena also met with students from USKids4Water (USK4W) to plan Hack4Water, a hackathon geared towards immersing students in working to solve a water-related issues.
Gold Award Girl Scout Sarah created the Girls Speak program, which focused on the importance of building girls’ confidence and public speaking skills. She created and presented a series of workshops for girls to help them learn how to find their voices and confidently use them. Sarah convened a panel of professional women who noted the importance of public speaking in their careers and offered advice on how girls could gain confidence in their abilities to use their voices. She used social media and developed a website to promote and support her efforts, and trained girls and women to present Girls Speak programs of their own.
Gold Award Girl Scout Sofia promoted the work she did toward earning her Girl Scout Gold Award on her college application and was awarded a full scholarship to Ohio State University to be part of a Women in STEM program. For her take-action project, she used social media (Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram) to reach hundreds of girls interested in STEM fields and created a social networking space for them with women engineering students from various universities and professional women engineers from corporations. The networking platform allowed young girls to have direct access to inspiring professionals and ask questions about careers in STEM.
Gold Award Girl Scout Autumn focused her take-action project, Sweating Out the Stigma, on addressing society’s preconceived notions about people with special needs and challenges. She wanted to eliminate the stigma associated with persons with special needs, particularly among high school students. Autumn created a program that brought children with special needs together with high school students to play Pillo Polo. She recruited and trained student volunteers to help conduct the program. As a result, Autumn discovered that the children involved in the event were learning to work with others, were gaining confidence, and were improving their coordination, while the volunteers were gaining a better understanding of the special needs community and learning to see each person beyond their disability.
Gold Award Girl Scout Georgeena was concerned about the impact of isolation on young children during the pandemic. “The early years of socializing are important for children to develop interpersonal skills,” says Georgeena. As part of her take-action project, she created and implemented a 10-point program to help children gain lost opportunities in ten key areas, including learning to understand facial cues, learning personal space versus engaging with others, learning eye contact, and respecting others, learning to feel comfortable interacting without a mask, and more. Through her efforts, she helped adults become aware of the real effects COVID isolation can have on their children.
Gold Award Girl Scout Emma experienced the challenges of being hard of hearing and communicating with others while wearing a mask during the pandemic. Masks present serious challenges to members of the Deaf and hard of hearing community by hindering the ability to lip read or gauge facial expressions. Masks also hinder voice projection, which makes it difficult for those with hearing impairments to understand clearly what is being communicated. As part of her take-action project, Emma created an awareness campaign to help make more people conscious of this issue. She educated school and healthcare personnel, conveying to them the need to slow down and be patient with the hearing impaired, and encouraging them to speak clearly and project as much as possible when wearing a mask. In addition, she worked to encourage the hearing-impaired population to advocate for themselves and make others aware that they are hearing impaired, as well as to use various communication tools for more effective communication.
Gold Award Girl Scout Valencia was inspired to educate young minds on Alzheimer's because of her own experience growing up with her grandparents. She wrote a children’s book that explains Alzheimer’s in simple words to help young people learn what they can do at home to support their loved ones living with dementia. Valencia hosted several live readings of the book via Zoom to groups and individuals. She held briefings with parents and children dealing with dementia patients, prior to printing her book to ensure that her book was relatable and accurate and ready for publication, and then she published it as an e-book and posted it on YouTube in 10 different languages.
Gold Award Girl Scout Ava conducted a First Communion outfit swap for her take-action project. She collected donations of Communion outfits from the parish of St. Vincent's Martyr and brought them to a parish in need in her community. These outfits will be used year after year for children to borrow them and use them for their special day. She is hopeful that this idea will continue to expand to other parishes in need.
Gold Award Girl Scout Hansa chose her project given her passion for culture, and cultural inclusion. As a first-generation American, she often experienced the feeling of exclusion since her culture differs from many of her peers. “As an Indian-American, I have been raised with the beauty of culture and diversity around me, and wanted to share this with my community.” Her One Love Project promotes cultural inclusion, primarily through a lesson plan that is currently being used for children in grades 3-5. Through this project, Hansa created a video featuring a dozen children from her town, who were willing to spread the message of the One Love Project. Hansa’s project has reached almost every classroom at Bogert Elementary School in Upper Saddle River, and is actively being taught to Girl Scout troops around her county.
Gold Award Girl Scout Casey was interested in exploring how children who receive Occupational Therapy have been affected by the COVID-19 lockdown and lack of access to doctors’ appointments and therapy. Casey’s project was to create “take home” bags and a guidebook to support OT AT HOME for children and their parents. She worked with the Special Education Department at Clifton Public Schools to host a Make-and-Take activity night for OT patients and their parents.
Gold Award Girl Scout Ella focused her project on the dwindling number of native butterflies in her community. Addressing the issue of conservation, Ella reintroduced native plants that the local butterflies relied on, and distributed more of these plants to members of the community for planting in their own gardens.
Gold Award Girl Scout Alexa addressed mental health and wellness with her take-action project. With proven data supporting the positive impacts of the outdoors and daily exercise, she created a clean, safe hiking trail that anyone can hike to destress.
Gold Award Girl Scout Katherine focused her project on raising awareness of the importance of early childhood vision exams to improve the quality of life for children. Katherine experienced the loss of vision in one eye when she was a young child because she did not receive the necessary medical attention at an early age that would have saved her sight. Good eyesight and eye health are crucial to learning and to functionally well in all aspects of life. Her project involved reaching out to several news sources, pediatricians, preschools, social media, and social service agencies to inform parents that it is essential to bring their children to the eye doctor. The newspapers and social media alone reached over 30,000 households. Katherine also recruited several optometrists to host an all-day free eye clinic for children.
Gold Award Girl Scout Haley etched 50+ mirrors at her local elementary school to reflect positive words back at the students to help build up their self-esteem. This project was especially important during the global pandemic as students returning to school had faced variables that no one could have ever imagined.
Gold Award Girl Scout Eliza created an instructional and compelling video to teach others how to lobby local elected officials for change. The video, just under 30 minutes, includes interviews with troop members, elected officials, other local activists. Eliza’s troop had spent years lobbying for the plastic bag ban in New Jersey.
Gold Award Girl Scout Siya promoted an inclusive environment for all through education, inclusion, and acceptance of those with autism. Her Project EnAble includes an interactive online game, slideshow, informational brochures, and an animated video that has been shared with both local and global communities. Additionally, Siya founded the Project EnAble Youth Ambassador (P.E.Y.A) Program, which calls for driven teenagers to use Project EnAble resources and spread the outreach of the program.
Gold Award Girl Scout Kaitlin’s environmental themed project focused on the alternatives to plastic bags along with negative effects of plastic bags. The theme was Educating, Providing, and Continuing. From creating educational materials and hosting virtual meetings to raising funds for reusable bags for the community, Kaitlin’s project made her community a greener place.
Gold Award Girl Scout Isabella created a Women in STEM Club at her high school as a way for students to combat the stereotype that women cannot work in STEM. To learn about STEM, the club members performed various experiments and interviewed women who currently work in STEM fields. Isabella documented the club's progress on its YouTube channel, STEMpowered, and Instagram to inspire other girls to explore STEM.
Gold Award Girl Scout Hailey’s project addressed opioid addiction and awareness. To create educational materials, Hailey met with many experts on alternatives to pain medication such as: a nutritionist, the school’s athletic trainer, health officer, a yoga instructor, a mindfulness teacher, a therapist, a physical therapist, and the local police chief. After meeting with these experts, she organized an event that allowed them to speak about alternatives to opioids for managing pain and to educate her community on these alternatives.
Gold Award Girl Scout Madeline’s project was made up of 3 different aspects: the creation of a Future Teachers Club, the establishment of a Future Teachers Academy, and adding an Education Track to Morristown High School's Career Night. Madeline created these three initiatives to support students as they pursue teaching and educate them on the career path.
Gold Award Girl Scout Bridget’s project centered around giving back to the arts in her community. With the help of various volunteers, her core project team performed a physical inventory of all the costume pieces, created a digital log, and developed a tracking system. The resulting inventory system will impact musicals and plays to come, as it will be simpler to find and maintain the things needed for productions, as well as track items that are loaned out to other neighboring schools and organizations.
Gold Award Girl Scout Krisha sought to combat feelings of isolation during the pandemic for local youth. She hosted a virtual camp. After recruiting a team of high-school volunteers, she created pre-recorded instructional videos of fun, camp activities. Then, in virtual meeting spaces like Zoom, children tuned-in to have an interactive camp experience.
Gold Award Girl Scout Jenna’s project had two major goals: to save the Glen Rock High School Girls’ Golf Team as it was going to be eliminated without enough freshman players, and to address feelings of negative body image and self-esteem among girls. “After struggling with my own athletic ability and confidence in middle school, I knew that golf was a great opportunity for other girls to get involved in a team sport as I did.” Golf is a sport that doesn't involve running or contact and can be used to introduce girls into sports, building their confidence.
Gold Award Girl Scout Faith’s project addressed the alarming honeybee population decline. Faith made a difference by bringing awareness of this issue to her community and creating a pollinator garden for bees in her community. She felt that there is much information to be learned about honeybees that all people should know including their importance, the reason for their decline, and ways to help them.
