Gold Award Recipients

Change the world, change your life, and earn the most prestigious award in Girl Scouting. The Gold Award is the highest achievement within the Girl Scouts of the USA, earned by Senior and Ambassador Girl Scouts. Only 5.4% of eligible Girl Scouts successfully earn the Gold Award.

Gold Award Girl Scouts are rock stars, role models, and real-life heroes. How do they do it? By using everything they’ve learned as a Girl Scout to help fix a problem in their community or make a lasting change in their world. And you don’t have to be a seasoned activist or star student to get there. Girl Scouts who want to get involved and go for the Gold Award get a team of trusted adults and leaders in their community to guide them through challenges and lead them to success, step-by-step. There’s no other program like it.

Learn more about the Girl Scout Gold Award.

Alivia Collins

Menstrual health products are a basic necessity, yet many students face anxiety and embarrassment when caught unprepared at school. To address this issue, my Gold Award project will implement free menstrual product dispensers in two school bathrooms, serving both students and faculty. This project aims to eliminate the fear of starting a period without supplies, reduce the stigma surrounding menstrual health, and foster a school culture built on dignity, comfort, and equity.

Wren Davis

The Root Cemetery Prairie in Chillicothe had been largely neglected and unsurveyed, and had particularly deteriorated over the past few years. That is, until Gold Award Girl Scout Wren turned her attention to the cemetery and chose it as the subject of her Gold Award project! Wren addressed a handful of issues facing the cemetery, one of which being the little scientific research or documentation done there, despite a thriving community of natural plants and animals. Additionally, the invasive plants, particularly smooth sumac, were threatening the native plants and prairie/savannah environment. To address the issues at the cemetery, Wren created a website that provided in-depth information on the Root Cemetery Prairie and its natural features. The website promotes awareness of the wonders of Root Cemetery Prairie and its natural wonders, along with its human history. Wren also diligently collected information on the plant and animal life on the prairie so that naturalists at the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission have an inventory that they can build upon when doing conservation research work at the prairie.

Sophie Deem

Sophie wanted to find a way to help her community, specifically how to help get quality produce to low income families. She wanted a solution that would be permanent, and be a source of healthy food options for her community for years to come. This led her to build enclosed raised garden beds that will provide fresh produce for food pantries. Sophie also wrote a guide on how to grow your own food. This guide is geared for simplicity so that all members of the community, even younger kids, can take part in growing the community garden. Sophie even got to test the usability of her guide when she led a workshop with local children, explaining the process of gardening and it’s benefits in the kitchen. The workshop generated excitement in the kids of the community about growing their own meals and their ability to aide the family with the grocery bills. Sophie also provided families in her community with a garden driven recipe booklet with recipes centered around the plants in the community garden.

Lily Dothager

Lily took on a project to better her community by renovating the bathrooms at a local park, Staunton Fireman’s Park. Lily decided that, due to the public health and safety issues of the facilities, this wouldn’t just be a great project, but also a task of necessity. The issues were plentiful in the bathrooms, as stated by many community members. Lily was tasked with solving issues with stall doors that lacked privacy, sinks that were falling apart, broken soap dispensers, unstable toilets, and even a hole in the roof. Community members also shared that they felt these bathrooms were not designed with families in mind, even though that is who uses it the most. To attack these issues head-on, Lily designing taller doors with locks to provide more privacy, replaced the old sink, and added changing tables to the mens’ and womens’ bathrooms. Lily also worked on advocating to the local City Council about fixing the larger structural issues with the bathrooms.

Vivienne Dothager

Vivienne wanted to address the issues concerning a lack of educational opportunities offered to youth on the treatment and topic of hard of hearing and deaf individuals. Because deaf or hard of hearing children often go to classes tailored to them, hearing students don’t get as much of an opportunity to interact and learn about the deaf or hard of hearing community, leading to a lack of understanding when they try to communicate. This lack of communication can be because of a language barrier. Vivienne decided to address this language barrier at the root of her issue. Vivienne wrote and published a story that teaches it’s readers sign language, as well as represents the deaf and hard of hearing community with positivity and inclusivity. She then shared her story at elementary schools in her town. A summary of her book follows: "Mia is in second grade and is deaf. Her classmate Ali wants to be friends with her but does not know how to communicate with Mia. Learn along with Ali and Mia's classmates as they explore sign language and how to communicate with deaf and hard of hearing people.”

Keira Henneise

Keira aimed to address the issue of the increasing need for physical activity in youth and creating an active environment with her Gold Award Project. Keira chose to address these needs at Camp Tapawingo where she planned a storybook archery trail recreation, along with slingshot stations for Girl Scouts and campers to use. Although Camp Tapawingo had a storybook archery trail, the former trail had fallen into a state where it could not be used. To fix up the trail, Keira redesigned and recreated the signs and books around the trail, updating the story and making it more current for Girl Scouts using the trail now. She also replaced the targets, as well as created a slingshot catch box to expand the activity to be available to Daisies. Keira also addressed the root cause of the weather destroying the trail by applying a protective polyurethane cover on top of the wood, making sure that her hard work would stand the test of time and serve many Girl Scouts for years to come.

Emily Hurst

Emily wanted to give back to her high school’s music program with her Gold Award Project and chose to conquer the storage and clutter that had accumulated around the band and choir room. The lack of an organization system made the area where music was stored haphazard, unkempt, and unsafe. Emily wanted to find a solution that would suit both the needs of the teachers and students using it, while also standing the test of time. It was also made clear in her consultation with the music department teachers that her solution should allow students and staff to access music materials with ease and needed to be able to work around the stages that were in the music room. To suit these needs, Emily decided to build a storage system with totes and a mounted rack system that shelved the totes. This saved some much needed real estate for the classroom and made the organization system much more clear to anyone using it. Emily also created a QR code for each tote to help the teachers log what each tote contained, furthering the ease of her well-built organization system.

Rachel Leggett

Rachel aimed to help her local hospital revitalize their wellness path. She decided the most important way of doing this would be to address the issue of increasing pollinator habitats in the area. Rachel’s first step to revitalize the pollinator habitat on the wellness path was to add houses for bees, birds, and butterflies. Next, Rachel planted a plethora of native plants and flowers in the path to offer a place to pollinate. She made sure to set up plant markers in front of each species she planted so that onlookers could learn more about the native habitat. Creating a whole new ecosystem on the path, Rachel brought new life to the nature walk, quite literally. Rachel took her project even further and educated younger kids about the importance of pollination and helping pollinators increase their numbers. This helped cultivate extra interest in the pollinator paradise she had created, and helped spread awareness for the importance of the pollinators themselves. Not to mention, it offered a beautiful new view for hospital patients and visitors.

CJ Richards

CJ believes that reading not only provides us with the fundamental skill required to be successful in the modern world, but also shapes our values and culture. CJ noticed a common lack of interest towards literature in younger children, especially post-COVID. In the digital age, it can be a daunting task to find a way to make reading more appealing than other activity options kids have, but CJ was up for the challenge. CJ started by partnering with Galva Elementary School, where she got to work sifting through the libraries’ catalog and making connections with the librarian and students. She labeled and organized around the library to make it easier for students to find specific books. She also sorted through the existing books and got rid of old and damaged books. CJ found when talking to the students about reading and what kind of books entice them, the majority said they were interested in graphic novels. This led CJ to fill the new empty space in the library with graphic novels that she felt would excite the students she talked to. CJ hopes that the new improvements to the library helps keep reading alive!

Kayleigh Trimm

Kayleigh came into her project with the goal of bringing better awareness of mental health resources to her community, especially to young adults. Kayleigh began by addressing the root cause of the issue by leading a team to gather research on mental health in teens and young adults. She assessed students on their general knowledge of mental health issues, as well on their knowledge of where to go if they need help. From the data she gathered, Kayleigh designed a poster presentation for her school district's social worker to give to the high school students. This presentation was not only on the fragility of teen mental health, but how they can reach out for help. To test if her presentation had offered new information to the students, Kayleigh gave them the same assessment. The results of the second assessment were much better, showing Kayleigh that her information was useful and very well presented. The posters were also put on display in local libraries for the community to benefit from.

Nethraa Venkatesh

Nethraa addressed the issue of water safety and drowning by spreading awareness about the topic. Nethraa found that drownings often happen due to a lack of awareness. Many people think that swimming lessons are unnecessary, yet families still visit bodies of water in the summer and risk their lives by not learning this life skill. Parents especially don't realize how easily a child or toddler could drown in just a few seconds, especially when not watched. This prompted Nethraa to create a plethora of resources on water safety and share them with the community. She created a website, a patch that can be used by any youth troop, informational pamphlets that are accessible by the community, and an online workshop alternative for groups. All of these resources aim to shed light on a topic that is often overlooked or not given serious thought. Nethraa made sure that these resources were readily available to all to combat the general lack of awareness.

Ellen Wiker

Ellen aimed to address the issue of the overwhelming feral cat population in her community. Her local animal shelter, Menard County Animal Control Shelter, did not have adequate space to accommodate all the cats. This lack of space led to feral and stray cats being housed in the same spaces as the domesticated cats in the shelter, often causing illness and injury to the cats. The overcrowding also limited the amount of space the cats had to exercise. To help with the overcrowding issue while still offering much needed shelter for the feral cat population, Ellen designed and built three outdoor shelters. This helped make more space for the cats and lowered the amount of injuries and illnesses that occurred. Ellen took her project a step further by pushing an adoption initiative on social media in the hopes of finding the cats at the shelter their forever homes. She posted about the importance of animal welfare and the animals at the shelter. Ellen was even able to host a donation drive, collecting much needed supplies to give to Menard County Animal Control Shelter.