If you are a pre-teen or teenage Girl Scout, chances are you’ve heard of the Girl Scout Gold Award. You may have earned the Girl Scout Bronze Award or the Girl Scout Silver Award. You may even be working on your very own Girl Scout Gold Award project! If any of these are true, you probably know that the Gold Award is the highest award a Girl Scout can earn, and that it can only be started and finished in the Senior and Ambassador levels. But what is a Girl Scout Gold Award project?
A Girl Scout Gold Award project is a “take action” project. That means it must be self-sustaining, even long after the project is completed. It can’t be something like a one-time food drive, and it can’t be contributing to a group that already exists. It is a passion, and a project designed to target a problem that you’ve identified.
Unfortunately, it can also be extremely stressful. There are a lot of requirements that must be met, an example being spending at least 80-hours on the project. That is such a big deal, it can make one’s palms sweat just thinking about it. Plus, a lot of people don’t have that kind of time and energy. There are always more homework assignments, chores, and extracurriculars that demand attention, and that can put a stop to any plans for earning the highest award in Girl Scouting.
In addition, there’s that voice in your head that tells you that you can’t do it, that it’s too hard, that you should give up. And sometimes, you do have to pick what things you want to do, and what things you have to quit in order to have enough time for everything.
However, earning the Girl Scout Gold Award is also incredibly rewarding. It can help you get college scholarships, be a good thing to put on your résumé, and be good publicity for that problem you want to solve. It will give you good personal experience, and you will almost certainly get to know a lot of interesting and important people. It will also give you a sense of achievement, which might work to silence that voice telling you that you can’t do it. It will make the world a better place, all because you decided to go for it.
I haven’t listed all of the benefits and drawbacks, but I guarantee that the former category will have a considerable amount more than the latter. In addition, more people doing a Gold Award project doesn’t make its value go down, it elevates you. All that it will do is ensure that more problems will be solved. So if you are on the fence about whether or not to attempt to achieve the Girl Scout Gold Award, consider trying it. Yes, it’s hard, and yes, it takes a long time, but it will be worth it in the end. Who knows? Maybe you are a future Gold Award Girl Scout!
Sources:
2016 gold award fact sheet, Girl Scouts of the USA
Gold Award, Girl Scouts of the USA
Gold Award | Girl ScoutsGirl Scouts of the USAhttps://www.girlscouts.org › GoldAward
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