Audrey Morse Earns Gold Award, Highest Honor a Girl Scout Can Achieve

Audrey Morse Earns Gold Award, Highest Honor a Girl Scout Can Achieve

PLEASANTON, CA, May 4, 2016 – The Girl Scouts of Northern California is pleased to have bestowed the highest honor possible for a Girl Scout, the Gold Award, to Audrey Morse of Pleasanton.

For the prestigious Gold Award, girls spend months or even years completing requirements that develop leadership and culminate in an extensive service project that makes a difference in their community or even across the world. In 2015, Girl Scouts of Northern California proudly conferred this honor to 124 outstanding young women.

To earn her Gold Award, Audrey completed a project that involved delivering an "Art Cart for Healing" to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland, CA. According to the hospital the art cart will be used by children who are undergoing diagnostic tests and treatments in order to make their experience less intimidating and more comforting. "I've always loved working with young children whether through being a summer camp counselor to coordinating programs for younger girl scouts," said Audrey Morse. "Seeing how this cart will help ease the stress of medical procedures for both kids and their parents through art therapy is so exciting for me."

“It is an honor to bestow the Gold Award to exceptional girls like Audrey whose commitment and initiative betters themselves and the world around them,” said Marina Park, CEO of Girl Scouts of Northern California. “The intensive work behind the Gold Award epitomizes how Girl Scouting helps to set a girl on her path, and then she can take it anywhere from there.”

A Girl Scout since 2004, Audrey began working on her Girl Scout Gold Award in January of 2015. She is an 11th grader at Amador Valley High School and the daughter of Greg and Heidi Morse.

While the Gold Award is Girl Scouts' highest award for Girl Scouts, there are countless other awards and programs in Girl Scouting where developing and displaying leadership takes center stage, including the Silver Award, Bronze Award, and the Leadership Journeys program, which allows girls at every age level to build leadership skills by discovering, connecting, and taking action. Service is built into all aspects of Girl Scouting with the hope that girls like Audrey will carry a commitment to serving others into their adult lives. For information on Girl Scout leadership programs, please visit www.GirlScoutsNorCal.org

About Girl Scouts of Northern California

Girl Scouts of Northern California serves a diverse membership of 49,000 girls and over 31,000 adult volunteers in a nineteen-county area from Gilroy to the Oregon border. Girl Scouts builds girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place. To learn more about Girl Scouts of Northern California, visit www.GirlScoutsNorCal.org.