Three scouts from Girl Scout Troop 10071 in Manlius have been busy this past year — but their hard work has paid off because, recently, Anna Stewart, Amelia Krouse and Ashley Van Slyke were honored for receiving the Gold Award at the Young Women of Distinction Luncheon on May 21 at Driver’s Village in Cicero.
According to the Girl Scouts of the USA, between 5 and 6 percent of Girl Scouts go on to successfully complete the process of obtaining a Gold Award.
Stewart, Krouse and Van Slyke are all current juniors at Fayetteville-Manlius High School and have been involved in Girl Scouts since they were young.
“It feels incredible to receive this award that we were unknowingly working toward since we were little,” said Krouse.
The Gold Award is the highest award that a Girl Scout can receive, and is comparable to an Eagle Scout achievement in Boy Scouts, said Troop 10071 Co-Leader Terri Stewart, mother to Anna.
To receive a Gold Award, a Girl Scout must be in grades nine through 12 and have completed both Bronze and Silver awards. For a Gold Award, a scout must individually identify a problem in her community, investigate it, create and present a plan to a panel from the Girl Scouts and gain feedback, build and lead a team to carry out the plan and find a way to share the project for the greater good of the community. Scouts must spend a minimum of 80 hours through this whole process.
Stewart’s gold award project was to create a diabetes awareness campaign to better educate the general public about what the disease is and how to help people who have it if their blood glucose drops to dangerous levels. Stewart created a website, pocketdiabetes1.moonfruit.com; an Instagram page, @pocket_diabetes; and created a video to promote accurate and useful facts about the disease.
In addition to the online component of her project, Stewart also created a display window in the Manlius Library and made bookmarks with information about diabetes to distribute.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions about diabetes and I wanted teach people what it was and how to know the signs of low blood sugar and help someone with diabetes,” said Stewart. “I thought it was an important thing so I decided to make it my project.”
Krouse’s Gold Award project was to update the map at Mill Run Park in the village of Manlius, put in trail markers and created a printable brochure to help park-goers navigate the trails. Creating the new map was done on a trial and error basis, said Krouse, and she had to use a dated map of the park and walk it to find where any new trails were located. Krouse said she led a team of family and friends to help her put up the nearly 90 trail markers on trees in the park.
“I had so many great memories at Mill Run Park and it felt great to be able to give back to the community with my project,” said Krouse.
Van Slyke’s Gold Award project was to create a religious tolerance event to provide an opportunity for the community to come together and learn about other religions. On Feb. 28, religious leaders of many different religious backgrounds, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hindu and Buddhism were invited to come together and speak at a forum about the issue of religious tolerance and understanding.
Van Slyke organized the event and sent out fliers to get people in the community to attend. After the event, Van Slyke distributed a survey and said the overall response was positive. She has distributed CDs to the people involved in the event so they could share it with their communities.
“I’ve always had a dream to someday ‘save the world’ but I knew that wasn’t entirely possible. So I thought I could at least improve it a bit by bringing in people of different backgrounds to the same place to promote learning and tolerance,” said Van Slyke. “It’s a worldwide issue.”
All three of the girls plan to continue to be involved in Girl Scouts through their senior year of high school, and said they believe they will carry lessons learned in Girl Scouts throughout their lives.
“Being in Girl Scouts teaches you respect and how to work with others like you would in an adult job,” said Krouse.
“It feels good to have done something so helpful. It’s definitely something I’m going to take away a lot of lessons from and keep through my entire life,” said Stewart, who would like to study public relations and marketing in college.
“It goes back to the Girl Scout Law — leave the world a better place then how you found it,” said Van Slyke, who plans to study nursing.
To learn more about the Girl Scouts of the USA, go to girlscouts.org.
