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Service Unit: Sunny Peaks
Troop 529 (Seniors – Ambassadors)
Years as a troop leader: 9
What kind of activities do you do with your troop? What is their favorite thing to do?
Our troop loves to socialize so we either have our regular meetings or meet at a local pizza shop. Some of our favorite activities include crafting and camping! Together, we’ve gone kayaking on the Verde River, and also enjoy going trick-or-treating in Uptown Sedona on Halloween.
Tell us about a volunteer moment that stands out to you.
It’s hard to choose just one, but recently, while we were on a camping trip I watched the girls work together to set up their bunks, gather wood for the fire, and help with cooking and cleaning duties. It was satisfying and inspiring!
What would you like others to know about volunteer opportunities with the Girl Scouts?
I want others to know that volunteering as a Girl Scout leader is a real gift. The girls are inspirational and I’ve learned a lot from them about myself and about my relationship with my daughter. It’s a wonderful feeling to watch a group of girls evolve into wonderful young women. It’s truly special knowing that other volunteers and I played a small part in their growth.
What is the most inspiring moment you have experienced as a troop leader?
There have been so many inspiring moments – small and large. What I find most inspiring is watching the girls go from little kids to pre-teens to young adults, knowing they have learned a lot of valuable things in Girl Scouts and seeing them put those things into action. Their kindness to one another, the way they maintain respect despite their differences and then celebrate their achievements together is always inspiring and empowering.
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Service Unit: Cotton Blossom
Troop: 2174, Multi-Level
Years as Troop Leader: 8
What inspired you to become a Troop Leader?
Both of my daughters were my inspiration to become –and to continue– on my journey as a Troop Leader. I love the lessons that I have been able to share with them.
What kind of activities do you do with your troop? What is their favorite thing to do?
We are a multi-level troop and I try to find activities that all our girls can participate in together. We have participated in horseback riding, gone on encampments, As You Wish pottery painting activities, been to Christmas parades, World Thinking Day, volunteered with Feed My Starving Children, gone hiking, camped under the stars – so much!
My favorite activity is Encampment. At Encampments, I get to see the problem-solving skills that the girls in my troop possess. Encampment is where I find and believe their true independence shines through.
What kind of service projects have you done with your troop?
We have volunteered with Feed My Starving Children every year. We have also put together backpacks for children living in domestic violence shelters and we have built a food pantry at a local church for donations to be collected.
Tell us about a volunteer moment that stands out to you.
My favorite moments happen during a Bridging Ceremony. I love being able to honor the girls with all their accomplishments from the year. I love seeing the smiles on their faces when they walk across the bridge and put on their new uniform. They feel so confident and so proud of themselves, and I do too.
What advice would you give other Troop Leaders?
Advice I would give to other Troop Leaders is, “Everything is going to be alright!”
What do you wish someone had told you as a new Troop Leader?
I wish someone had said to me that everything was going to be alright (LOL). I was nervous and scared being a new Troop Leader not really knowing anything about Girl Scouts. I was worried that I was letting the girls in my troop down, their families down, and myself down. Only when the girls in my troop would return every year did I finally embrace my role as a Troop Leader and have the confidence that I was a part of something great!
What would you like others to know about volunteer opportunities with the Girl Scouts?
Girl Scouts offers many opportunities to our girls to become future leaders in their schools, church, and communities. As well as scholarship opportunities.
Tell us in your own words, why is it important to participate in the Cookie Program?
The five skills the girls learn during cookie season help the girls internalize what it takes to run their own business, how to speak up, manage money, set goals and so much more.
What are your troop’s cookie selling tips and tricks?
We are a full uniform troop. We have always felt that to run your business you need to look like you own the business. We have always inspired our girls to dress in a full uniform. They love every cookie season when they receive compliments from customers on how professional they look.
What is the most inspiring moment you have experienced as a Troop Leader?
There are so many to choose from since I have been a leader for almost 8 years. My inspiring moments are watching each of the girls in my troop grow and overcome their own hurdles in life and do it with grace and style! Every girl in my troop has become like one of my own and we have become one big Girl Scout family.
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Service Unit: Indian Bend
Troop 4345, Multi-Level
Years as a Troop Leader: 3
What inspired you to become a Troop Leader?
My daughter wanted to join and our local school did not have a troop. So, I asked a friend who is well connected in the community if she knew of a Girl Scout Troop nearby that our girls could join and she replied, “No, but I’ve been wanting to start one!” So, we started a troop for our daughters and stuck with it!
What kind of activities do you do with your troop? What is their favorite thing to do?
We like to cook and bake (dog biscuits, cupcakes, snacks), go to encampments, do crafts, learn about animals, play games, complete service projects for our community, and sell cookies!
Out troop enjoys giving back. We have participated in making wellness packs for the homeless and supported our local healthcare providers with messages of support and care packages during the COVID-19 crisis. We’ve also made blankets and food packs for relocated refugees arriving to Phoenix, and plan to earn our Bronze Award by supporting a local animal shelter with toys, food, and improved living conditions for the dogs they support. We have also collected pajamas for kids in foster care and helped to clean a new agency supporting foster and adoptive families in Arizona, ASA.
Tell us about a volunteer moment that stands out to you.
Our girls have such big hearts! We keep some of the homeless packs we’ve made in our car when driving to events and activities and on our commute, we’ll look out to see if anyone is homeless that we can give them to and to spread some joy, cheer, and encouragement.
What advice would you give other Troop Leaders?
Provide the girls with opportunities that can make a difference in your community and the world around us. The girls are receptive and they are already aware of needs of those around them. There are many ways to get involved that girls at each level can participate in like bringing awareness to bullying, going to public places that need trash picked up or better recycling plans, or participating in groups that need support and advocacy. Girl Scouts can change the world if you lead them to the ways they can be involved.
What do you wish someone had told you as a new Troop Leader?
It is okay to embrace a little chaos so that meetings and activities can truly be girl-led. They’ll be better for it! I also recommend going outside and going camping with the girls often!
What would you like others to know about volunteer opportunities with the Girl Scouts?
There are girls in your community and maybe in your own household, that need strong female leaders to help guide and support them. It takes extra time and energy to be a Girl Scout volunteer but the seeds that you plant and the return and joy you receive from the girls is worth all of it.
Why is it important to participate in the GS Cookie Program?
It is important for our girls to participate in the cookie program because it teaches them confidence, goal setting, working together with others, and learning to be adaptable when situations do not go your way.
What are your troop’s cookie selling tips and tricks?
Have fun! Sign up for cookie booths. Interact and engage with your customers. The cookies are delicious and sell themselves, but a Girl Scout who knows why she is selling cookies and how this helps her, and her troop, speaks volumes and you’re sure to see the cookies fly off the table!
What is the most inspiring moment you have experienced as a Troop Leader?
I think the most inspiring moment for me as a leader has been to witness our girls grow into themselves, to start to speak up for themselves and for those around them, to embrace difference and change, to find their voice and to blossom into the leaders they are meant to be.
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Whether you’re a first, second or third-year Girl Scout Cadette, there are some badges we think all Cadettes should know! Check out the list below to see which badges made the list and how you can earn them, too! With Girl Scouts at Home, you can add these badges to your summer list and earn them in no time!
- How to Treat Wilderness Injuries: What do you do if someone breaks a leg while you’re hiking in the mountains? Or how do you help someone who has nearly drowned on a boat trip? This badge will help you research injuries and talk to an expert on how to help in these situations.
- Find Common Ground with Others: Sometimes we make our differences so big we can’t see past them. But when you get to know people who aren’t exactly like you, you often find that they care about many of the same things you do and that you can find common ground—not by sacrificing or changing what you think, but by being open to other perspectives. This badge helps you listen to opinions that sometimes differ from yours.
- Understand Your Digital Footprint: The internet is a powerful tool! You can chat with friends, research school projects, play games, watch videos, or listen to music. The downside is that you leave information about yourself with every screen tap and click of the mouse. This badge teaches you to think carefully about the kind of information you are sharing every time you visit a website or use an app.
- Learn How to Think Like a Citizen Scientist: Scientists study nature and conduct research to better understand how it works. They use what they learn to create solutions that help people, animals, and the environment. To learn new things and do research, scientists use a process called the scientific method, which you’ll learn a little more about!
- Utilize Outdoor Cooking Skills: Over time, Girl Scouts have learned to cook great food in a variety of ways … in cardboard box ovens, on tin can buddy burners, and even on hot rocks. While earning this badge, you’ll try another technique – making orange cakes and cooking them in orange shells!
Girl Scouts are resourceful, and this can look like continuing your journey on your own, even when away from a troop setting. Explore all available badges and make your own plan with the Badge Explorer!
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It’s in the Girl Scout DNA to help in a time of crisis. In fact, over 62% of K-5 girls (surveyed by GSUSA in April) want to do community service activities, and 72% want to do activities that help their community. That’s why one of the first at-home program opportunities we put together for girls once COVID-19 social distancing was in effect was a Guide to Helping Others, a summary of ideas and opportunities to serve the community safely. Not surprisingly, some of the most exciting projects in our Council have been around helping animals!
Animal-related Girl Scout badges are commonly completed. They include the Brownie Pets Badge, Junior Animals Habitats Badge, Cadette Animal Helper Badge, and Senior Voices for Animals Badge. And our Council offers the PetSmart Paw Patch in partnership with PetSmart Charities, which is one of our most popular patch programs (10,000 patches have been earned and distributed in the last two years!).
While the badges and patches are a fun way to engage girls in pet care, advocacy, and veterinary careers, girls have leveraged these opportunities to give back to their community. Most girls, when completing the badge and patch requirements, conduct pet care supply drives, volunteer at local shelters, and make pet toys, sew blankets, and pillows.
Supporting animals is a special and unique way for girls to be of service in this time of need – as many girls love animals, they quickly see how pets are important members of our communities, and this helps fill a gap when animals aren’t top of mind for all adults during this pandemic directly affecting people.
So far during the pandemic, girls have earned the Girl Scout Pet Badges and PetSmart Paw patch through several exciting service projects:
- Council-wide service project – Girls made and donated pet supplies for the Arizona Humane Society Service project
- Council-wide donation drive – Troop 2232 led a drive that inspired many sister-Girl Scouts to support the Navajo Nation and Hopi Lands with pet food and care items.
- Troop 3589 earned their PetSmart Paw Patch through virtual troop meetings at home!
We’re proud of how girls are taking charge and caring for Arizona—feeling inspired, too?
>>Join or renew to continue the fun
>>Earn your Pet Badge or PawPatch
>>Choose a way to help others
>>See more virtual Girl Scout opportunities
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On the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, all students – those who didn’t finish the recent school year in-class to those who will start school for the first time – face a very different set of circumstances than previous years. School administrators express that more than ever, mental, emotional, and social preparedness is paramount.
To address the pandemic’s impact on education in Arizona and replace in-person programs canceled due to social distancing guidelines, Girl Scouts–Arizona Cactus-pine Council (GSACPC) partnered with ASU Prep Digital to create a unique, online program for K-12 girls this July.
The new program, “Girl Scout Summer Adventures,” is structured so girls can connect socially and emotionally during this time of isolation and support their formal education at the same time. It’s all about setting girls up for success by enriching their socially-distanced summers at home and helping them prepare for the coming school year. Through the program, which is tailored to each grade level, girls are working with new friends, having fun, and tackling new skills through age-appropriate activities and experiences.
The four-week pilot leads girls through a choose-your-own-adventure journey exploring life skills, STEM, entrepreneurship, and outdoors. With a mix of live and recorded sessions and downloadable content, girls have been able to go at their own pace and on their schedules. The program is guided by GSACPC program staff and licensed educators. And since Girl Scout programming complements academic curriculum, participants in grades 7-12 have had the opportunity to earn free summer school credit.
“As an organization that positively impacts academic achievement for girls, we feel an obligation to innovate our program model so we can continue to support girls during this monumental time when their education is in upheaval,” said Christina Spicer, GSACPC Deputy Director.
Thanks to a long-standing history with ASU Prep Digital– the local accredited online high school affiliated with Arizona State University– once the pandemic began impacting schools, GSACPC rapidly went to work to develop the Summer Adventures program in partnership with the school.
GSACPC was also able to coordinate special, behind-the-scenes live visits for girls by tapping into some of their other dedicated partners. From business owners, arts and culture organizations, to VIP visitors, session experiences have included Q&As with female role models like Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego to cooking class with a pro chef and touring an observatory.
Parents and guardians are praising the quality of the program:
A parent who is also a teacher noted, “It is an impressive amount of planning, organizing, and implementing! Both my daughters are excited about the line-up for their [grade] levels, and I hope to sit to the side for a lot of it, too! One of their material boxes arrived in the mail today, and I’m in awe of the badges and journeys incorporated and provided. You should all be commended for creating such a professional, age-appropriate, packed-with-fun program.”
A longtime Troop Leader shared that she has never seen such excitement from girls in her troop, “Six of my [Troop’s] Girl Scouts registered for the Summer Adventures program, and they are having so much fun! They send me pictures and talk to me about all the exciting projects they’re doing.”
To make the program accessible to all girls, a fee was not required to participate. A donation of $100 for the full 4-weeks was suggested, but families were able to determine how they could support the program. GSACPC hoped to serve 250 girls through the July pilot session, and 416 girls are currently registered.
“ASU Prep Digital helped us learn how to offer Girl Scout programming within a Learning Management System. We look forward to using this knowledge as we continue to adjust our program delivery model to meet the needs of girls,” said Spicer.
With this success underway, GSACPC plans to continue assessing how programs like this might catalyze deeper partnerships with all local schools to support formal education outcomes for girls, especially as school districts are looking at their plans for returning safely to the classroom.
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Girl Scouts–Arizona Cactus-Pine Council (GSACPC) and Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) today announced 24 new badges designed to help girls practice ambitious leadership in the crucial areas of automotive engineering, STEM career exploration, entrepreneurship, and civics, many of which remain male-dominated. In a year of unprecedented global change, our country’s need for strong, broad-minded, and decisive leadership has never been greater. Through new and existing programming, Girl Scouts equips the next generation of female change-makers with the breadth of knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to take charge and do good for the world, both now and in the future.
The new Girl Scout badges include:
- Entrepreneurship (grades K–12). Girls develop an entrepreneurial mindset as they engage in age-appropriate exercises that help them create and pitch a product or service that solves a problem. They build their own business plan and think about topics like production, cost, profit, marketing, and competition. Three in four of today’s girls are interested in becoming an entrepreneur, but more than half also say they need more support in this area; these badges are designed to fill the gap. Funded by Susan Bulkeley Butler and designed in collaboration with VentureLab.
- STEM Career Exploration (grades 2–8). Girls explore their career interests and connect them to STEM fields—particularly computer science, nature/environmental science, engineering, design, health, and agriculture—that can help them address the pressing issues of our time and change the world. The IF/THEN® Collection, a free, downloadable digital asset library of real-life women in STEM, is an integral component of the badges. The dearth of women in STEM fields is well documented, but data shows that girls are more interested in a STEM career when they learn how they can use it to help people, demonstrating the value of Girl Scouts’ unique approach. Funded by IF/THEN, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.
- Automotive Engineering (grades K–5). Girls learn about designing, engineering, and manufacturing vehicles, as well as the future of mobility. They design their own vehicles, test prototypes, learn about design thinking, create their own assembly line manufacturing process, and more. Only 13% of engineers are women, underscoring the need for these badges which will introduce more girls to the field. Funded by General Motors.
- Civics (grades K–12). Girls gain an in-depth understanding of how local, state, and federal government works, preparing them to be voters, activists, and even political leaders. They research laws and how they’re created, voting, and the electoral college, the representation of women in government, and more. They also research their own government officials and are encouraged to meet them. Just 24% of eighth-graders are proficient in civics, and only two in five American adults can name the three branches of U.S. government, highlighting the need for these badges. Funded by the Citi Foundation.
Steady leadership is essential during a crisis such as COVID-19, from fostering trust and showing compassion, to managing challenges with agility, to evaluating outcomes of decisions. The Girl Scout program is proven to develop strong and effective leaders—among many positive outcomes, Girl Scouts are much likelier than non-Girl Scouts to take an active role in decision making (80% vs. 51%), which is a critical aspect of leadership.
“Whether they are fighting cybercrime, exploring how engineers solve problems, or advocating for issues affecting their community, Girl Scouts are learning how to proactively address some of the foremost challenges of today while also building skills that will set them up for a lifetime of leadership,” said GSACPC CEO Tamara Woodbury. “I am so proud that our new programming continues to push girls to be forward-thinking and equips them with the skills they need to make today’s world a better place. We believe in the power of all girls, and we invite them to strengthen their unique abilities by joining Girl Scouts.”
“Now more than ever, it’s critical that we have strong leaders who can make informed decisions,” said GSUSA CEO Sylvia Acevedo. “During our current health crisis, the world leaders who have been among the most decisive and effective in addressing the pandemic have been women. With these new badge experiences in STEM, entrepreneurship, and the critically important subject of civics, Girl Scouts is continuing to build the transformational female leaders of today and the future and showing girls the power they have to truly change the world.”
Girl Scouts has made free self-guided activities from select new and existing programming available digitally to the public through Girl Scouts at Home™, keeping families engaged and connected to their communities. Girls can further engage with the badges and topics through online videos, activities, or special live virtual events. Members can access a suite of Girl Scouts’ programming digitally through the Volunteer Toolkit (VTK), including troop meeting plans and other resources to help girls earn badges and awards.
Join or volunteer with GSACPC in central and northern AZ today!
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Service Unit: La Promesa
Troop 4906, 2nd-3rd grade
Years as a GS: 7
Years as Troop Leader: 5
What inspired you to become a Troop Leader?
My Girl Scout experience began as a Brownie when my mom was my Troop Leader. I knew I wanted to follow in her footsteps and lead a troop for my girls!
What kind of activities do you do with your troop? What is their favorite thing to do?
Our troop loves to work on badges together. They love everything from arts and outdoors to STEM. Their favorite thing to do as a troop is camping! We have been to GSACPC Camps Parsons and Maripai, and we are planning our next trip to Willow Springs.
What kind of service projects have you done with your troop?
We completed our Daisy service project and held a donation drive for the Sun Valley Animal Shelter. We collected donations, shopped for new items, and delivered them to the shelter. Once there, we read our favorite books to the cats and learned about how the shelter takes care of the animals. Our current Brownie service project is a food drive to support the Valley View Community Food Bank. This year we have also adopted an assisted living facility where the girls have gone caroling, offered a cookie tasting, and mailed them cards during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tell us about a volunteer moment that stands out to you.
I love being involved in our local Service Unit. Getting together as a group of local leaders is a great way to share in the leadership experience and learn new skills. Serving on committees such as Bridging and Leader recognitions initiatives has been a highlight of my Girl Scout volunteer experience.
What advice would you give other Troop Leaders?
It is important to ask for help and bring the parents into the planning process. Some parents are great at crafts, others at organizing, and some love the outdoors. Everyone can play a part and it makes leading more enjoyable when you can share the role with others. Send out a parent survey and find out about their strengths to see how they can take an active role in your troop.
What do you wish someone had told you as a new Troop Leader?
I wish someone had told me that not every meeting needs to be “Pinterest-worthy.” The girls are so happy just to be together and enjoy the Girl Scout opportunity.
What would you like others to know about volunteer opportunities with the Girl Scouts?
Volunteering with Girl Scouts is rewarding in so many ways. By leading a troop, you create opportunities for girls to try new things, make new friends, and make an impact in their community. I love being a role model and encouraging them grow.
Tell us in your own words why it’s important to participate in the GS Cookie Program?
Participating in the cookie program is very important for our troop. Not only does it provide the funding we need to run our troop year-round, it provides an opportunity for our girls to learn valuable life skills such as goal setting, business ethics, and money management. I have watched girls gain confidence and speaking skills through cookie selling opportunities. We watch them grow year after year as they set higher goals and find creative ways to reach them. This year was our best year ever at just over 6,800 boxes sold!
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Dear Girl Scout Volunteers,
As we continue to monitor and adjust our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, always prioritizing the health and safety of our girls, their families and our broader community, I want to reach out and express the staff and my deepest gratitude for your continued commitment to Girl Scouting and the girls we serve. While you’ve been juggling the changes that COVID-19 has caused in your own life and family, your level of engagement in supporting one another, the girls, the council and the community has been truly remarkable.
We’ve seen thousands of you learn new technology skills to conduct ongoing virtual troop and service unit meetings. So many of you and your girls have animated the Girl Scout Promise and Law through numerous service and take action projects, including mask making, collecting food for our food banks, and gathering thousands of pounds of cat and dog food as well as other supplies to help Hopi and Navajo families who have been severely impacted by the coronavirus.
This kind of engagement and commitment to the Girl Scout Movement through this pandemic and economic instability, is why this Movement has survived many challenges over the last hundred plus years. We’ve heard that some of you are concerned about the long-term financial health of our council, given that the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and social unrest could escalate and/or linger for many months. Like most organizations and businesses, these are indeed very difficult times for our council and the national Movement. Our revenue streams have been significantly impacted and we have yet to see how this pandemic will impact our largest revenue stream – our Girl Scout cookie program. Thankfully, our council’s board and staff have managed our financial resources with fiscally conservative diligence over the past two decades. The council has the financial reserves, set aside for times just like these, to help sustain our council over the next couple of years, as our annual report shows. Nonetheless, we will need to be prudent and adapt our business practices in order to weather this storm. We’ll also need to continue to bring in as much revenue as feasible to sustain our organization and maintain our facilities for a future when we can all enjoy our camps and in-person events and program activities again.
We’re approaching the summer and upcoming fall season with a mixture of caution and hope. We will continue to prioritize the health and well-being of all our members and the numerous communities throughout our jurisdiction. We look forward to a time when we can gather again, in-person, to continue to learn, celebrate and enjoy what Girl Scouting offers us as individuals, and as a Movement that has helped build the social fabric, strong values and beliefs that promote civic engagement and sustain our democracy. We stand on the shoulder of the girls, women and men who lived through wars, natural disasters, and other pandemics. I have faith that our girls and volunteers like you will lead us through the current challenges with amazing innovation and passion.
Tamara J. Woodbury
GSACPC CEO -
We got our girls busy on virtual patch-earning in mid-March – we completed Random Acts of Kindness and Keep Calm, I am a Girl Scout patches. Here is what we did if you would like to do it with your troop:
Random Acts of Kindness
The girls learned what it meant to live the Girl Scout Promise and Law over eight days to earn the first patch. Every day they were asked to do something to exemplify a section of either the Promise, the Law or a combination. Each night they and their parents posted a picture, video or confirmation of what the girls did through our private online group. We were proud of their responses and feel this experience has helped them to understand GS values, not just memorize and repeat them.
Activity Sheet / Instructions Example
Complete a listed action each day based on the Girl Scout Promise or Law. Have a parent post it in the online group each day, using a photo, video or drawing. It has to be done the same day it was posted. Suggest keeping this requirement so all patches can be earned with honor.
We will start on ______and continue for 8 days. Questions? Contact Leader _______or Leader _________.
- Day 1. Girl Scout Promise: What did you do to serve your God or Country?
- Day 2. Girl Scout Law: What did you do to be honest, fair, considerate and caring?
- Day 3. Girl Scout Law: How were you responsible for what you did or said, to show respect for yourself and others?
- Day 4. Girl Scout Law: In what ways were you courageous and strong?
- Day 5. Girl Scout Promise and Law: How were you friendly and helpful to at least one other person? Now, come up with an idea that would make a person smile. A card? A poster? A video? A song? Your funniest face?
- Day 6. Girl Scout Law: What did you do to respect authority?
- Day 7. Girl Scout Law: How did you use resources wisely?
- Day 8. Girl Scout Law: In four sentences, what does it mean to be a sister to every Girl Scout?
Keep Calm, I am a Girl Scout
The second patch we worked on was Keep Calm, I am a Girl Scout. This one was designed for family participation and ran for ten days. Since school started again, via the internet, we gave the girls two days for each project. Origami was our theme, starting out simple with a cat and dog face, we progressed to more difficult designs each day, ending with a pony that flips.
Since not everyone had origami paper at home, and we did not want anyone going out for supplies, the girls were given several ideas of what they could cut into 6- or 7-inch squares. Magazine pages, Sunday comics, wrapping paper, copy paper that they colored, drew on, marbled, textured with watercolor and salt, or anything they could come up with.
To order your Random Acts of Kindness and Keep Calm, I am a Girl Scout patches, visit the online Council Shop!
By Troop 655 in Payson
Troop Leader: Jessica Kjellstrom
Co-Leaders: Denise Blanchette, Alexis Kjellstrom -
I have been a Girl Scout since first grade, 12 years to be exact. I am now entering my sophomore year in college, and everything I learned as a Girl Scout has helped me tremendously in every phase of life. Thanks to Girl Scouts, I learned how to communicate effectively and put others before myself. This has helped me not only when applying to jobs and colleges, but I have also been able to use these skills for things such as building friendships and growing my inner confidence. Girl Scouts has offered me some incredible experiences; my troop has traveled to London, Italy, France, New York, and Costa Rica. Along with being able to travel the world, I have completed my Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards, the highest awards in Girl Scouting, which require tackling community issues and sustainably serving the community.
Earning my Gold Award, in particular, was something that I worked extremely hard at, and I am incredibly proud of completing it. My project, Dream for Dresses, focused on the 29,537 homeless children in the Arizona Public School systems who cannot afford the luxury of new clothes for the start of school. At the beginning of this project, I focused on creating dresses for young girls, as they are primarily the ones whose confidence suffers the most when it comes to appearances. As I began, however, I also wanted to gather clothes for boys and organized a clothing drive as well. Per the Curvilinear Model of Self-Esteem, achievement in school is at its lowest efficiency rate when self-esteem is low. The goal of my project was that through new clothes, these children would gain the confidence they needed to raise their achievements in school, as they are the future.
As mentioned before, there are 29,537 homeless students in the Arizona public school systems alone. On a national level, the number is significantly larger: 1.3 million. While my project impacted those locally, I hope that my project and its presence on social media will inspire others to do the same everywhere. While I am in Rhode Island attending the University of Rhode Island, I plan to continue to help the homeless youth here and create awareness on the East Coast.
My new commitment to Girl Scouting has been helping a younger troop with not only their Girl Scout Cookie sales but also with holiday bazaars, earning badges, and their Girl Scout Bronze and Silver Awards. Last March, during my Gold Award, I invited them to collaborate with me, offering training and tips for their future service projects. I taught the girls how to sew and put the dresses together and shared why I chose this as my Gold Award project, and they too became passionate about helping students. So much that they agreed to continue my project, and so I donated all surplus supplies to them.
The truth about Girl Scouts is that it shapes women into strong individuals who have the power to change their community. Girl Scouts gives girls confidence and strength to take on the world and be successful in any endeavor.
Kaya Evans is a Gold Award Girl Scout and GSACPC Alum. She currently attends the University of Rhode Island with hopes of becoming an occupational therapist.
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