Girl Scouts Honor Seven Gold Award Recipients
FORT WAYNE — On International Day of the Girl, Girl Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana (GSNI-M) is proud to announce seven girls in the council who earned the Girl Scout Gold Award in 2019.
Since 2012, October 11 has been marked as a day to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face, while promoting girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights.
The Gold Award is earned by girls in grades 9-12 who demonstrate extraordinary leadership in developing sustainable solutions to local, national and global challenges.
Cassie Bohne, Fort Wayne: Fall Product & Cookie Program Tips. This project addresses the problems that occur during the fall product program and the cookie program by creating videos that will help answer and prevent miscommunication between parents, troop project coordinators and service unit product coordinators.
Elise Jones, Fort Wayne: Increasing Bird Habitats in Fort Wayne. Elise and her team built a multi-level birdhouse big enough to house 12 purple martins and placed it in the prairie area behind a local hospice and grief center. The basic purpose of this project was to create a habitat for wildlife in an increasingly urban world.
Kathryn Pfeffer, Wabash: Monarch Migration Inspires Wetland Restoration. This project helps global monarch migration and provides healthy habitats for the declining pollinator populations. Kathryn built a butterfly garden on wetlands on the campus of a nonprofit school to educate the students, staff, greenhouse customers and community. She also provided educational posters and pamphlets.
Julia Jones, New Carlisle: A Mural for America. Through the process of mounting a mural on the wall of the American Legion, Julia hoped to improve an unattractive cinderblock wall and provide a place for reflection, other than the town cemetery, for service men and women. The mural sheds light upon the brave faces who sacrificed for our country that are all-too-often neglected.
Katie Lo, Granger: Increasing Literacy in the Local Foster Community. Katie organized book drives, purchased and built bookshelves, and created a library in a local foster closet for kids who may have difficulties getting books. Reading was an important part of her educational and social growth, and she wanted to share this with a group that might have trouble accessing books.
Elizabeth Schmidt, Ossian: Dream Team Bleachers. Elizabeth installed two new sets of bleachers at Whicker Field to provide seating for spectators to watch Dream Team T-Ball — kids with special needs. She included an education component about the Dream Team (which includes her younger brother, Brandon, who has Down Syndrome) and spread the impact the team has on the community.
Elizabeth Mellor, South Bend: Holy Cross Blacktop Playground. For Elizabeth’s project she painted several games onto the parking lot at Holy Cross Grade School in South Bend. As an alumna of the school and a member of the associated parish, she knew the school struggled for funds to provide equipment to entertain the students at recess.
For more information or to register or renew your membership, visit www.gsnim.org/join.