1.) Why did you decide to be a part of Girl Scouts?

I don’t actually remember joining Girl Scouts as a clear cut decision or choice; I think my mom probably just signed me up in first grade. My older brother and sister were in Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, and all of my friends were joining, so I guess I went with it? I think it seemed like another step that came with entering elementary school.

2.) What did your project entail?

My project was a blog targeted toward saving money without sacrificing a healthy, gratifying lifestyle for those with economic struggles or anyone else who just wants to lead a more economical and frugal lifestyle. Starting out, I solely focused on nutrition, which is a huge issue with low-income families; these “food insecure” families cannot afford fresh produce, proteins, or organic food and often rely on inexpensive, energy-dense foods full of fats, sugars, and refined grains. While I decided to broaden the goal of the blog, this issue remained a major part of the mission. One of my friends who is actually going to major in nutrition and currently goes to the Culinary program at Boro contributed her knowledge and experience in the area. My parents also have a vegetable and herb garden, so we included articles about growing your own food on a small scale.

The rest of the blog was dedicated toward finding ways to save money, often by making things at home rather than buying them at the store or recycling old materials or using products in new ways. As the Gold Award is supposed to consist of a leadership project, I recruited friends and classmates to research and contribute articles while I set up mini photo shoots to provide accompanying pictures.

3.) What was the most rewarding part of this experience?

The most rewarding part of this experience was probably the knowledge that these ideas and this research opened people’s eyes to new strategies they hadn’t thought of and information they hadn’t known beforehand. I think that everyone who worked on the articles learned something new and even applied some of these ideas to their own lives.

4.) On average, how many hours did you put into your Gold Award project?

I worked on the project a couple of hours each week, for a total of almost a hundred hours. The main reason why I decided to create a blog for the project was the ease with which my team members and I could collaborate on a digital platform. Everyone worked on their own schedules and picked up where we left off the last time.

5.) Not many Girl Scouts continue to be part of the organization through high school. What made you decide to stay involved for so long?

Honestly, I think it wasn’t so much that I decided to stay involved, but that there wasn’t really any reason to quit; as our troop got smaller and smaller, our meetings, projects, and events became a combination of hanging out together and helping others, so it was a win-win situation. All of my other extracurricular activities and hobbies are very independent and introverted— art, piano, reading, midnight binge-watching— while Girl Scouts was an extracurricular that tied me to my community and geared me toward collaboration.

6.) What was the most difficult part of completing this project?

The hardest part in completing the project was recruiting people to volunteer their time. Once NHS became an obligation, however, it became easier to do so as so many people were looking for community service hours, especially ones they could complete at their own convenience.

7.) Overall, how has being in Girl Scouts shaped you as a person?

Being a member of Girl Scouts has pushed me to take a larger role in community events and has probably helped me become a more generous and compassionate person; it has also deeply ingrained in me an annual craving for Thin Mints and Samoas.