Earning one of the Girl Scouts’ highest awards challenges girls to be their best and develop, plan, and implement a Take Action project. Silver Award Girl Scouts are making the world a better place. The Silver Award is the highest honor a Girl Scout Cadette (sixth – eighth grade) can earn and requires a minimum of 50 hours to complete.
In membership year 2022, seven Sandy Run Girl Scouts earned the Silver Award. All of the girls will be honored at an upcoming council-wide ceremony.
Rebecca Lieberman, a ninth-grader at Hopewell Valley High School and a member of Troop 266, earned the Silver Award by completing a project supporting patrons of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK). Rebecca made more than 125 no-sew t-shirt tote bags and filled them with donated hygiene items to give to the patrons of TASK. Rebecca collected donated t-shirts and taught her team to use the donated t-shirts to cut and tie into tote bags. Rebecca then coordinated and supervised a hygiene product drive at her middle school and synagogue, collecting items such as toothpaste, soap, deodorant, shampoo, body wash, lotion, razors, and the like. Rebecca also created a mobile app that she advertised on a flyer so that people in her community could know how to contribute to her project.
Mairead Menarde, a ninth-grader at Villa Joseph Marie High School and a member of Troop 21574, earned the Silver Award by completing a project benefiting the Nature Trail in Lower Makefield Township. Maggie organized and led an Earth Day Nature Trail Cleanup. While observing her community, Maggie noticed that that nobody was taking care of the local Nature trail and saw this as an opportunity to educate younger Girl Scouts about nature preservation and fix up the trail. Maggie met with a naturalist who works at 5 Mile Woods Preserve in Lower Makefield and developed steps to clean up the trail, including: building wooden bridges where the trail was impossible to walk on due to water, removing anything that was blocking the trail, cutting back invasive weeds and plants, relining the trail with wood, and basic recycling.
Akshara Anirudh, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21574, earned the Silver Award by completing a project supporting recycling in her community. Akshara thought it was essential for residents of her community to know the importance of the three R’s – reduce, reuse, and recycle. Akshara created a website (https://aksharalosadhu.wixsite.com/reduce-reuse-recycle) that includes a detailed description of what each R stands for, and pictures and ideas of how you can complete the three Rs. The website also gives the community an opportunity to engage with others. To promote her website to children in her community, Akshara hosted an Earth Day event related to the three R’s.
Sarah Awadalla, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21570, earned the Silver Award by completing a project focused on improving access to feminine hygiene products for girls at her middle school. Sarah designed and sewed fabric zipper bags that she filled with feminine care products. Each bag was lined with fabric and included a canvas patch that was stamped with the quote “Girls With Dreams Become Women With Vision.” Sarah designed the fabric stamp herself and then made an iron-on transfer to create the canvas patch that was sewn into the lining of the bag. Sarah gave the zipper bags to the nurse at Pennwood Middle School to hand out to girls who needed them.
Abigail Greenberg, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21570, earned the Silver Award by completing a project benefitting Congregation Beth El of Yardley. Abigail educated the Congregation Beth El of Yardley about the tradition of wearing a tallis (a Jewish prayer shawl) for both men and women. Abigail ran several workshops for both adults and students over several weeks for participants to artistically design their own prayer shawls and learn how to tie the traditional knotted fringes known as tzitzit. Abigail also created a video (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wxf75pJ-v9MBoXDghkSq7lvrrFkr-l_R/view), which is on Beth El’s website for people to see how to tie tzitzit.
Allison Toth, an eighth-grader at William Penn Middle School and a member of Troop 2035, earned the Silver Award by completing a project benefiting Afton Elementary School. Allison revitalized the outdoor stage and surrounding courtyard space at Afton Elementary. The Covid shutdown and disuse caused the outdoor performance space and surrounding area to be overgrown and unusable. The space needed to be cleared of fallen tree branches and debris, rotten wooden seating removed, the entire area power washed, and the stage scrubbed by hand. Allison donated new flexible outdoor seating, a new removable red theatre curtain/stand for the stage, and a big outdoor bin to store it all. During Afton’s annual Celebration of the Arts, Allison dedicated the stage with a plaque to Mr. Andy, the night custodian, for recognition of all his hard work in support of the Arts at Afton and Allison’s project.
Kathryn Carlson, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21570, earned the Silver Award by completing a project benefiting Embrella, which serves foster, adoptive, and kinship parents in communities throughout New Jersey. Katy assembled duffle bags for children aged 10-18 years old who are placed in foster care because they have experienced abuse or neglect and who must leave their homes for their own personal safety. Typically, children are only given a couple of minutes to grab their belongings before being moved to a safe place, and their belongings are quickly tossed into trash bags. Katy’s bags are filled the with everyday items that children need – from hygiene products to blankets. The bags also included a book to get lost in, pens, pencils, and notebooks so the children could journal or draw.
PHOTO CAP: Katy Carlson