Campers Learn Survival Skills From Mendham Gold Award Contender

MENDHAM, NJ — Getting lost in the woods isn’t always a serendipitous happening, but for Gianna Galiano, it helped to propel her Girl Scout Gold Award project.

The pieces of the project came together one day when Galiano, 17 and a West Morris Mendham High School student, was hiking with her younger sister Angelina, 14, in the Schiff Nature Preserve near their home.

Gianna Galiano told Patch she’d started working on parts of her Gold Award project in December 2019, “Survival In The Wilderness,” for Girl Scout Troop 4061, a project she minimally needed to invest 80 hours to achieve the Girl Scouts’ highest ranking award.

Unfortunately as she was raising money, COVID-19 hit, with the lockdowns putting the brakes on some of her fundraising activities.

A nature program that she also planned to work on over the summer of 2020 with Dorian von Aulock, Schiff Nature Preserve’s Executive Director and her program advisor, was also canceled because of COVID.

It was on that hike however with her sister, that her ideas for the survival project started to fine tune, Galiano said.

“We like to go hiking and we’re very familiar with Schiff,” she said.

She told Patch in a phone interview, the two especially ventured out for hikes for a change of scenery in the midst of pandemic lockdowns.

On that fateful hike though, the siblings took a wrong turn and were temporarily lost, with low cell signals and phone batteries, estimating they were about two miles from home, said Galiano.

Though they were slightly panicked, her gears began to turn from the experience as to how she could teach children to survive if they found themselves lost in the wilderness.

She explored some avenues for more information about survival skills, as well as ideas for fundraising.

Galiano said she first reached out to Kaitlyn Margeson, a senior outdoor instructor with the New York-based REI for tips via a Zoom call.

Next, she connected with James Langevin of Dick’s Sporting Goods in Rockaway and John Lopes of Ramsey Outdoor in Succasunna. Both stores donated items she learned were necessary for survival kits, which she packed into bags for 20 campers, who she recently worked with at the Nature Preserve for the Survival Explorers Program.

The items she amassed were enough that Galiano was able to donate 16 more bags to the Nature Preserve for future Survival Explorers programs, geared for kids between the ages of 12 and 16.

During the program, Galiano shared with the Survival Explorers the experiences she carried away from that fortuitous hike. She was also able to provide with each participant a “Survival In The Wilderness” kit, filled with 10 essentials including: a Schiff Nature Preserve Trail map, a compass, a flashlight, a whistle, a bandana, a first aid kit, a poncho, a bug spray wipe and an energy bar.

The bags were also each packed with a Lifestraw, an item she embraces for its company’s mission in providing safe and clean drinking water to children in areas where water purity could be an issue. The company, she said, invests in communities with every purchase of a Lifestraw.

The straw has its own filter, something Galiano said was fascinating to the engaged Survival Explorers.

She told them with a wrong turn like she and her sister took, they could use their Lifestraw if needed, to sip drinking water from a stream, stressing the importance of staying hydrated.

Galiano, starting her senior year of high school in the fall, said she’s putting her finishing touches on her Gold Award project and report, which is reviewed by the Girl Scout’s council before she’s awarded.

She said she plans to stay involved with Girl Scouts even in college, which she started at age five in Metuchen before moving to Mendham. It was with her Metuchen troop that Galiano earned her Bronze and Silver Awards.

The beauty of the presentation that she’d made to the Survival Explorers at Schiff is that Girl Scouts working on their Silver Award can use it as a resource as well in the future, she said.

Galiano said she’s still in the process of deciding on a college or major.

While in high school, she’s been additionally involved in multiple clubs, which were sidelined temporarily because of the pandemic; and has played both field hockey and lacrosse.

Questions or comments about this story? Have a news tip? Contact me at: jennifer.miller@patch.com.