The Girl Scouts of Westwood are so delighted and proud that there are four Girl Scouts from our community who have earned the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award. The Gold Award is the highest award the Girl Scouts offers. Less than five percent of Girl Scouts achieve this honor. As described by Girl Scouts, “Girls who pursue their Gold Award aspire to transform an idea and vision for change into an actionable plan with measurable, sustainable, and far-reaching results.”
Over the course of one to two years, these four Gold Award recipients each spent a minimum of 80 hours on their individual projects and reached hundreds of members in the Westwood community and beyond. In addition to the positive impact their projects had this year, the success of their projects will reverberate for years to come. They found meaningful ways to address the issues in their community that they cared deeply about. Through their projects, they realized the power they had to positively impact their futures.
On September 22, the Girl Scouts of Westwood recognized and celebrated these high achievers at the annual bridging ceremony. The Gold Award recipients were able to discuss their projects with younger Girl Scouts and provide an opportunity for everyone to see all that Girl Scouts has to offer and the possibilities of what can be accomplished.
The Girl Scouts of Westwood are so proud of our Gold Award Girl Scouts. Their projects are described below:
Elizabeth Lowney: Spring Into STEM
For her Gold Award Project, Elizabeth, a junior at Westwood High School, took her love for STEM and Girl Scouts to create Spring Into STEM. This series of educational workshops helped empower over 100 K-12 Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts in Westwood to learn more about STEM through interactive demonstrations, hands-on learning and engaging activities. Elizabeth held three Spring Into STEM workshops where she partnered with the Westwood High School Robotics team to show students how they can become more involved in STEM in High School and beyond!
Anglina Homsy: The Kitchen Garden
Anglina’s project, inspired by her interactions with her grandmother at her senior living facility, focused on the challenges that food pantries face in providing perishable goods to their customers. Recognizing the nutritional importance of fresh produce, Angelina, a Westwood High School senior, created nearly 100 kits to grow tomato and basil home gardens. The kits, which were distributed through the Westwood Food Pantry, included instructions and information on good nutritional habits. Angelina engaged peers to help her create the kits, educating them about the food pantry and the fresh produce needs of those dealing with food insecurity. She also wrote articles and pamphlets to educate people in Westwood about the issue and hosted a presentation and garden-kit-making session for the Women’s lunch group at the Senior Center. Trish Tucke and Lina Arena Derosa from the Food Pantry and Westwood COA were kind enough to act as mentors to Angelina through the many steps and hurdles required to finish her project so successfully!
Charlotte Scolaro: Composting Benefits, From Landfills to Backyards
Charlotte’s environmental awareness led her to observe that Westwood’s composting efforts seemed less robust than other communities, a weakness she sought to address through her Gold Award project. To reach students and families in Westwood, Charlotte, a Westwood High School senior, developed a curriculum on how and why we should compost, including a video and instructional game, which she presented through multiple sessions to approximately 100 students in third to fifth grade. She also wrote articles for local publications about composting, including easy instructions and directions for accessing resources. On top of these efforts, Charlotte engaged in significant research on grants and programs available to expand recycling in town and advocated for their use. Charlotte felt lucky to have the mentorship of Julie Krass, the Sheehan School librarian, as she navigated her project.
Grace Barnett: SCRIIBE
For her project, Grace, a Westwood High School senior, focused on her concern over the incivility in public discourse. Having learned about the idea of connective democracy— the theory that people can interact more successfully on complex issues if they have first connected through a shared interest —Grace created a virtual writing conference called SCRIIBE (Students Connecting Remotely in the Interest of Better Expression). Through intensive writing workshops, Grace hoped high schoolers from different geographic areas would get to know each other, and learn about and appreciate their different experiences, while connecting through a shared love of writing. This past year she connected writers from Westwood and North Carolina for the conference, which culminated with a presentation and advice from a published author, and she hopes to expand to include students from other states this year. She was grateful for the support of Westwood High School English teacher Gavin Brezski and Yi Jiang of the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, both of whom offered advice and encouragement as she worked on her project.
