by Claire Pritchard, News Editor
This spring, 4 Fountain Valley High School students of Girl Scout Troop 1061 earned their Girl Scout Gold Awards.
“The Girl Scout Gold Award is the last and highest award that a Girl Scout can earn,” said Sarah Mundi, a Gold Award recipient and senior at FVHS. “You start this project as a Senior Girl Scout and finish as an Ambassador Girl Scout. To complete this project [you] need to solve a problem in your community and create a teachable tool to spread awareness throughout.”
Mundi, along with her troop-mates Kayla Borack, Meagan Gaydos, and Heather Carr, all seniors, spent the school year working on their awards and finished this spring. The projects ranged from children’s theater expansion efforts to social programs for special needs students at FVHS.
“In an effort to educate both the general education students as well as the students with special needs, I reactivated, reenergized and became president of a club called Baron Buddies,” Borack said. “Baron Buddies is a social club where students, regardless of having a disability or not, can meet new people and make their high school experience memorable.”
The Girl Scout Gold Award comes with an intense set of requirements for scouts to fulfill in order to earn their award, which brought some difficulties for the girls. Ultimately, the project must be student-done, which meant the girls had to take charge of their programs.
“I had a lot of trouble with voicing my opinion [to] my superiors and adult leaders,” Mundi stated. “I felt like they tried to take over my project and morph it to what they wanted. I really had to stand up for my project and my voice in order to finish my Gold. Now, I realize how important my voice is in being a leader.”
Throughout the course of their projects, the girls learned about their strengths and passions, which has helped some of them discover areas of interest for a future career.
“I aspire to someday become a special education teacher for high school students with mild to moderate disabilities.” said Borack. “I hope to someday instil in my students the lessons I’ve learned from Girl Scouts; most importantly that you can achieve any goal you set for yourself as long as you put in the time, effort, and dedication.”
The Gold Award, a culmination of the skills and values learned throughout a Girl Scout’s school career, both challenged and inspired the girls, preparing them for their future endeavors.
“Over the years, my time in Girl Scouts has taught me how to be a strong leader, work well with others, and recognize my self-worth,” Borack stated. “Above all, it’s shown me that everyone is capable of achieving greatness. We all have the power to make a difference in our school, community, or even the world. To me, Girl Scouts is very much about empowering young girls to see their true mental and physical strength, total value, and inner beauty.”
