Thursday, Sep. 04, 2008

Ten Girl Scouts earn Gold Awards

This year, 10 girls in the Modesto area earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest award that can be reached in Girl Scouting. Their projects made significant, lasting impacts on their communities.

Here are the girls who earned Gold Awards:

Leann Indelicato: Leann promoted literacy among children in her community. She helped host Family Reading Nights where parents and children could interact and read together. She also created visual boards that were displayed at elementary schools to attract the attention of children and help them gain an interest in reading.

Melody Leonardo: Melody chose to create awareness in her community about the Girl Scout Gold Award. To do this, she wrote articles for her school paper and The Bee about how the award is earned. She also used the Internet to spread awareness by creating a MySpace page for her troop so that others can view it and learn what she and her fellow troop members have done to earn their Girl Scout Gold Awards.

Alexandra Dressler: Alexandra found that a new school in her community was in need of extracurricular activities. She co-hosted a talent show at Crossroads Elementary to give students a venue to showcase their abilities.

Megha Mahida: Megha's project addressed the need for cultural awareness. She co-hosted World-Palooza, an event that showcased different styles of food, dance, activities and clothing from around the world.

Mohini Mistry: Mohini co-created World Palooza, an event to promote cultural awareness. She invited organizations to set up booths to educate the public about the different cultures they represent.

Allison Fiskum: Allison addressed the lack of interest in reading in her community. She co-hosted family reading nights at businesses; she worked with schools' PTAs to get involvement from parents and students. She also made boards displaying the joy of reading and distributed them throughout the schools.

Nicole Sassenberg: Nicole helped educate people about traffic safety and using roundabouts. She created and distributed brochures that contained "rules of the road" and information on using roundabouts. She also created a DVD that provided guidelines for driving through roundabouts, which she shared with parents at her high school's open house. Her DVDs and brochures also were given to driving schools in her area.

Andrea Thomas: Andrea created a tutoring program to help children with math. She helped 20 fourth-and fifth-grade students understand the math they were learning in their classrooms. She led the tutoring program for six weeks. At the conclusion of the program, her students had a better understanding and appreciation for math.

Anne Bartlett: Anne's project was to promote a higher level of learning and communication among elementary school students through reading. She created a campaign using boards that highlighted book characters and slogans to promote reading. Anne also held themed literacy nights where the families of students were invited to participate in crafts, games and reading.

Elizabeth Bido: Elizabeth helped a new school in her neighborhood, Crossroads Elementary, raise money to fund its Accelerated Reader program. She co-hosted the first talent show for the school.