Gold Award
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Congrats 2023 Gold Award Girl Scouts!

2023 Gold Award Girl Scouts
2023 Gold Award Girl Scouts

PHOTOS

Megan B.

Marlboro
Wellness Gateways

Megan's Gold Award Project, also known as the “Wellness Gateways” project, focused on tackling the issue regarding the lack of Mental Health Awareness in the school community. This project created a school-friendly curriculum about mental health and stress management, along with a resource database of local and national resources. This workshop was presented to various groups to raise awareness, such as friends, family, community members, school groups, and fellow girl scouts to bring awareness and instill fruitful skills amongst these audiences.

Blake C.

Hazlet
FLIPS (Future Leaders, Innovators, and Problem-Solvers)

Inspired by experiences at her high school, a predominantly male pre-engineering academy, Blake focused her Girl Scout Gold Award project on addressing the persistent gender gap in engineering. She designed “FLIPS—Future Leaders, Innovators, and Problem-Solvers.” FLIPS consisted of three components: a series of hands-on engineering workshops for middle school girls, a one-day Women in Engineering conference designed to increase adolescent girls' exposure to the field, and an Intro to Engineering Boot Camp for girls in elementary school. She also created engineering activity kits to donate to her local middle school so that her curriculum could continue to have an impact.

Anna D.

Brick
Brick Memorial Music Club

During the isolation of Covid, Anna saw the strong need for students to begin gathering. Music, being an easy catalyst for socializing, fueled her idea to create the “Brick Memorial Music Club,” for her Gold Award. Aside from the competitive school marching band, no music activities existed. After meetings with the Board of Education and the school faculty, she obtained club approval and found an advisor. The students brought their instruments weekly to chat about, listen to, and play music. With solid momentum they even planned and held a karaoke event. Detailed outlines of club objectives and goals have been left for “The Music Club,” to continue as an expressive outlet and accepting environment for future students during their formative High School years.

Isabelle D.

Manasquan
Elementary School STEAM Workshop

Isabelle’s Gold Award project, Elementary School STEAM Workshop, focused on expanding the STEAM education available to elementary school children in the local community. She developed a class specifically for third graders to expose them to hands-on STEAM projects and modified the class into a coding basics badge workshop for Girl Scout Troops. The students learned about the basics of coding and built a piano out of everyday conductive objects using Makey-Makey boards and a program called Scratch. Isabelle’s goal was to encourage, inspire, and empower young children to pursue STEAM education in the future.

Brinley D.

Wall
Go Golf

Brinley, a Senior at St. Rose High School, completed her Girl Scout Gold Award in the spring of 2023. As a member of the St. Rose High School Girls Varsity Golf team, Brinley quickly recognized the disparity between genders and income on the course. Her project, titled “GoGolf”, aimed to introduce the game of golf to those that may not be exposed to it. Attending community events, distributing marketing materials with local resources for children to get started and developing a Girl Scout patch program which she instructed for over 100 local Girl Scouts were highlights of her project.

Cailyn E.

Howell
First Responders

Cailyn’s Gold Award project titled "First Responders" brought awareness to the mental health of first responders and the lack of volunteers. She created a memorial/ reflection bench at Tinton Falls EMS North in honor of her grandfather. This bench is somewhere for EMTs to sit and take a deep breath after hard calls. She also created a website to go along with it that talks about the effect of a lack of volunteers.

Bridget F.

Bayville
Found You!

Bridget’s Gold Award project “Found You” was inspired by Bridget's Mother's home Firehouse. There was an issue with old maps getting lost or destroyed due to how old they were. This caused some deceased members to be forgotten on Memorial Day when they placed flags by the graves. Bridget felt something should be done due to their sacrifices for the community. Her project focuses on creating a space for storing deceased members' information. Her solution was to create a website template that could easily be edited. The template is available for other First Responding Organizations.

Arianna G.

Brick
Site Social 25

Arianna wanted to educate her community and beyond about current pressing social issues. For her Gold Award project, she built and created “Social Site 25” a website about social issues all over the world. She led a team of writers to write articles for her website and secured The Brick Memorial High School newspaper to take over the website. Club members and other students interested in writing for the website will manage it so that people will consistently be educated about current social issues.

Simran G.

Morganville
STEMinine: a guide of STEM for girls

Simran’s Gold Award project titled “STEMinine: a guide of STEM for girls” focused on the continuous issue that girls are scared to go into STEM with all of these stereotypes put into place. Girls have been told to "not let their emotions get the best of them", "engineering is for men", or that a certain type of job is for a man. Simran decided to address this issue by interviewing women in STEM and finding companies that help women in STEM especially by creating a website that ties these things all into one place to show girls that women can do anything! She also created an activity book for Girl Scouts to use before events so they can learn about STEM in a fun way! Girls can get introduced to STEM through the activity book during elementary school.

Jaqueline Rose G.

Rumson
Tennis Accessibility Project

Jacqueline Rose’s emphasis on her Girl Scout Gold Award Project was to help middle school children in her nearby towns have opportunities to learn the game of tennis, have a free and exciting way to maintain and improve their fitness, and teach life lessons like teamwork, responsibility, and sportsmanship. She arranged tennis lessons at the Boys & Girls Club on a regular basis in an effort to instill an understanding of the sport and to create a way for older students to teach younger children the game of tennis. This project also required Jacqueline Rose to cultivate interest from neighbors and various tennis clubs to donate equipment, as well as help from her varsity tennis teammates.

Lauren H.

Aberdeen
New Americans

Lauren’s Gold Award Project, titled “New Americans,” aimed to address the long, tedious, expensive, and stressful process of becoming a citizen of the United States. She aimed to address challenges many immigrants face including: (1) long processing time (2) financial and personal contributions (3) lack of a direct-relative sponsor living in the United States (4) language barriers and more, with simplifying the process by connecting immigrants seeking citizenship with current citizens that can provide assistance. Her project end goal is to develop a New Americans program that institutes clubs in high schools across the country. These clubs will, in turn, pair students with immigrants seeking tutoring and mentorship. Whether it be a Spanish student helping to translate the application, an History student helping with the exam or a communications student assisting with the interview process. Unfortunately, Lauren wasn’t able to complete her project, however many of the girls in Girl Scouts that knew Lauren have stepped up to help complete her Gold Award in true Girl Scout fashion.

Alexandra I.

Wall
Go Government

Alexandra, a Senior at St. Rose High School, completed her Girl Scout Gold Award in the spring of 2023. For her project, titled “GoGovernment”, Alexandra focused on educating young girls on their potential roles in American politics. Her goal was to inspire young women to pursue a career in politics. She attended local events, such as Wall Kids Day America, and spoke at numerous local Girl Scout meetings to share her project. Girls learned the basic structure of government, the importance the voting process and even developed their own campaign slogans!

Isabella M.

Holmdel
Encouraging Historical Exploration in Youth

There are hundreds of historical places in New Jersey and Isabella is on a mission to see all of them. Isabella’s passion and interest in New Jersey history would inspire her to build a website for her Gold Award project titled, “Encouraging Historical Exploration in Youth,” which would help others who already enjoy history and inspire others to want to learn about history; all more easily. On her website, locations are sorted by county and town. Information is provided about parking, restrooms, disability accessibility, possible fees, as well as other points of interest nearby; and each is accompanied by hundreds of photos. Isabella visited dozens of historic sites and hopes to continue adding more as well as helping others find interest in the history of the world around them, as she first did, inspiring her award.

Grace M.

Wall
Dance for Life

Grace, a Senior at St. Rose High School, completed her Girl Scout Gold Award in the spring of 2023. Her project, aptly titled “Dance for Life”, aimed to increase senior citizens’ physical, mental, and emotional health through the art of dance. Her goal was to provide resources for seniors and the aging population and have them stay fit, tackle fears, or try something new or perhaps something they have not done in a long time! Grace conducted her classes all over the Jersey Shore area in assisted living and rehab facilities, local churches and to women’ groups.

Fiona O.

Spring Lake
Plaques for the Past

Fiona, a Senior at Trinity Hall, completed her Girl Scout Gold Award in the spring of 2023. Recognizing many historic houses and buildings in her hometown were being demolished, Fiona launched a Gold Award project aimed at recognizing historical homes and landmarks in her town. Working closely with the Spring Lake Historical Society, her project titled “Plaques for the Past” was a true community effort. Fiona led fundraising for her plaques by having local businesses sponsor plaques on historical locations. Her goal was to “educate her community so important history does not get overlooked.”

Vivianna O.

Toms River
Better With Books

For Vivianna’s Gold Award Project, she lead a team to build book stations made from wood holding over 1250 multi-level donated books for children of homeless and domestic violence shelters called “Better with Books.” The inspiration for this project came from the constant contact she had with shelters and the increase of the children within them Her project aimed to help children, those less fortunate, and those who are innocent to the disposition put before them, helping to help alleviate the root cause of a lack of reading and educational books for children in shelters. The children living at the shelters do not know when they will live in a home of their own again and have the all the joys and resources, they had access to, which enhanced life and made life thrive like books. After interviews of admins in shelters and more research she decided on a 6-month collection of books both new and used with drop boxes and donation requests from stores to collect over 1,000 books and build multi-level book stations of wood to conquer this problem. In total, she collected over 1,000 books from sites in NJ, cleaned the used books, sorted all the books by age and reading levels, made flyers and advertised the book collection on social media outlets, and cold called donors for book station supplies. She then nailed, drilled, glued, painted, and personalized each book station of wood.

Reena S.

Morganville
Vanishing Domestic Violence

Throughout the past two years, Reena worked on her Gold Award project, “Vanishing Domestic Violence,” to spread awareness about domestic violence which she felt was very important and relevant. There are so many people who are victims of domestic violence who are unaware or have no way out. Reena educated people to help them realize if they were victims or needed help as well as providing information about places to go to and people to talk to. Her project goal was to make it easier for people to get the help they needed and to help save some of these victims' lives..

Mira S.

Holmdel
Social Media Awareness

Mira’s Gold Award project, “Social Media Awareness,” was focused on raising awareness about the realities of social media. Through numerous presentations to younger troops, Mira educated girls on the advantages and disadvantages of social media, as well as how to use social media in a smart and safe way. She also emphasized the importance of doing other fun activities such as reading or staying active, rather than scrolling endlessly through social media. To further emphasize the importance of reading, she put together a book drive in her community.

Prema S.

Marlboro
Cognizance of Culture

After experiencing first-hand the lack of diversity in her community, Prema started her Gold Award project, “Cognizance of Culture.” Her project aimed to increase cultural awareness and appreciation amongst the youth in her community. She hosted workshops for fellow girl scout troops of various ages and helped develop the Cultural Coalition Club at her high school, which hosts bi-weekly meetings. Prema’s goal is to help people learn about different cultures through engaging activities and interactive games. Her efforts will remain effective after her graduation, as the club is now well established at her school.

Ilana S.

Freehold
Pillowcases for Pediatric Patients

Children who are hospitalized often feel sad when staying in a white, stale hospital bed & room. Fun prints and character themed pillowcases can bring a sense of home and help to ease their fears and anxieties. Ilana’s Gold Award project gave children a chance to express themselves and their interests. While these children are going through procedures and treatments, the pillowcases gave them a sense of warmth and added fun to their hospital rooms. Ilana led a team to host workshops, sew pillowcases, gain donations of materials to gift to these kids and setting up annual donations.

Carlie S.

Eatontown
Lunging for Literacy

After witnessing a need that young children are weak in literacy and lacking in physical activities, Carlie’s Gold Award project “Lunges for Literacy,” was created. It started out with donations of books. Each book was sorted and given a post-it that included a physical activity which could be completed after the story. Books were distributed to different schools and libraries. A google classroom page was created for teachers to have numerous online stories, activities, and resources. A binder was distributed to teachers with monthly literacy and physical activity ideas. “Lunges for Literacy,” promotes increased literacy rates and healthy lifestyles for young children.

Trinity S.

Manalapan
Pollination Garden

For Trinity’s Gold Award project, “Pollination Garden,” she created a pollination garden to help local pollinators. Coming from a farming background, she knew the importance of pollinators and that they are crucial for our survival. The purpose of this garden is to expand the population of native pollinators and her goal in creating the garden was to use this platform to educate people on the importance of local pollinators and why we should help them. The garden created is located in Millstone at the Baird Homestead. It can be viewed from the road, is a walkable distance on the farm, and is close to a water source. The garden consists of blueberry plants, a variety of white mint, Autumn Joy, butterfly bush, heather, and silva. These are all perennials that will come back following years and will expand in size over time. She led her team to create and edge the garden, and mulched it to prevent weeds from taking over during the early life stages of these plants. The plants kindly donated by Four Seasons Nursery are all favored by pollinators and it creates an environment they can live in and allow for a successful ecosystem to blossom.

Olivia U.

Aberdeen
Sensory Engagement Playground for Preschool Three Year Olds at Saint Benedict Church and School

Olivia’s Gold Award project, “Sensory Engagement Playground for Preschool Three Year Olds at Saint Benedict Church and School,” involved her creating a playground space at her former school for their preschool program. This playground, also referred to as “The Nest,” is a center for learning and fun, as it also serves as a sensory playground. For the Nest’s design, Olivia visited a playground company to create a suitable structure for the young learners. Features selected included an interactive alphabet wall, a tic-tac-toe wall, and a numbers panel. Additionally, she built four pieces of sensory equipment to stimulate the five senses, including an abacus, a xylophone, and two sensory bin tables.

Hannah W.

Jackson
Forestry for Future Generations

Hannah completed her Gold Award project “Forestry for Future Generations,” at the Forest Resource Education Center (FREC) in Jackson, NJ. She created an artistic, landscaped display at the entrance to the parking lot at FREC which provides information on the importance that forestry plays in our lives and why conservation is needed as well as demonstrating causes of deforestation. The display includes a human-like wood carving and inspirational backdrop with the quote “Conservation is Humanity Caring for the Future” etched into a sign as well as containing an educational component that can be utilized to provide information to those visiting the center or attending a program by scanning a QR code that links to an informational website.