Students in the Sacred Heart Greenwich community are striving to win their Girl Scout Gold Awards by completing projects that tackle important social issues and make an impact on their communities.  A Girl Scout Gold Award is “proof that not only can she make a difference, but that she already has,” according to girlscouts.org.  Juniors Mimi Greco and Jules Ingram are both currently working towards achieving their Gold Awards through their own initiatives. 

Jules and Mimi both have been Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) for twelve years, starting their Girl Scout tenure in kindergarten. 

The Gold Award is the highest award a Girl Scout can receive.  Not only is it a prestigious and rigorous award, but it also encourages Girl Scouts to “tackle issues that are dear to them and drive lasting change in their communities and beyond,” according to girlscouts.org.  In total, only six percent of all Girl Scouts across the country win Gold Awards, with ten winners each year. 

Girl Scouts across the country submit their projects to GoGold Online and certain councils each select their top three projects.  GSUSA ensures a rigorous selection process, where they nominate candidates every year from April 1 to April 30.  Once there is a refined list, GSUSA’s internal National Gold Award Girl Scout Team selects the top ten, who then officially receive a Gold Award, according to girlscouts.org.

Along with the Gold Awards, Girl Scouts can also achieve Silver and Bronze Awards for their service in younger years.  Girl Scouts who are in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade and who have completed their Cadette Journey can qualify for the Silver Award.  Similarly, Girl Scouts who are in the fourth or fifth grades and who have completed their Junior Journeys can receive their Bronze Award. A Gold Award project is an individual achievement, a Silver Award project can either be a team or individual effort, and a Bronze Award is solely a singular endeavor.

Mimi hopes to earn a Gold Award by focusing on piquing young children’s interests in reading to help them in their future academic careers.  Mimi is creating a website where she will post videos reading children’s books out loud with accompanying pictures from the same books.  Children from across the country will then be able to access these recordings, fostering an interest in reading and literature at a young age.  In tandem with the website, Mimi started Ms. McLeod’s Library Club at Sacred Heart with junior Joi Almonacy to encourage her peers to collaborate with her efforts.

“My hope is that children who view the videos will become more interested in reading after having it presented to them in a way that may seem more enjoyable,” Mimi said.  “This growth of reading skills will hopefully help them academically.” 

For Jules’s Gold Award project, she has been working with a local charity, New Covenant Center in Stamford, Connecticut, since the summer of 2020.  Jules decided to volunteer with this center as a result of the spiking food insecurity rates and the decline of charity donation rates worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

New Covenant Center is the only food pantry within ten miles of Stamford that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  As a result of the coronavirus pandemic and an accompanying economic downturn, the demand for the meals the center provides has grown from 175 to almost 600 meals a day. 

Jules organized an initial food drive in November 2020, working around new restrictions such as health precautions and limited face-to-face interactions.  The title of the food drive was “Ghostly Giving, Coronavirus Comeback Food Drive.”  With help from other volunteers, Jules collected 40 boxes of food donations which, in total, were worth $2000.  She then donated these boxes of food to New Covenant Center to relieve some of the additional burdens they have now due to the pandemic.  Jules is planning on completing her Gold Award project in late winter or early spring so that she can qualify to receive her Gold Award in April.

Jules also created a guidebook that will help other individuals plan and run more food drives in the future, ensuring a lasting impact of the initial food drive.  

“My goal with the guidebook is to easily outline the step by step process of running a food drive to encourage other people, especially younger people, to run drives and get involved in their community as well,” Jules said.  “The book will also include things such as contacts for local charities, and tips I learned from running my own food drive.”

Featured Image by Dylan Drury ’22