Briarcliff Scout Earns Silver Award With Yoga Project

PLEASANTVILLE-BRIARCLIFF MANOR, NY - From Crossover Yoga Project: On Saturday, November 18, 14-year- old Julia Lucarelli was awarded the Silver Award – the highest honor a Girl Scout cadette can earn – for her “Peace, Love and Positivity” project dedicated to creating uplifting messages for participants of the Crossover Yoga Project. The inspiring messages come hand-drawn on brightly colored cards covered in flowers, hearts and rainbows, created on Julia’s free time and with her fellow cadettes during their Briarcliff Manor Girl Scout Troop 2005 weekly meetings.

The cards read:
“Make today so great that yesterday gets jealous.”
“BeYOUtiful”
“Never Give Up”
“The goal is to make them smile,” says Julia.

Crossover Yoga Project (CYP) is a non-profit organization that brings a trauma-informed yoga, mindful and art therapy curriculum to teenage girls who have been abused, sexually trafficked or in and out of the juvenile justice system throughout their lives. The organization teaches them how to care for themselves, to cope and recover from traumatic experiences and inspire others. Since its inception two years ago, CYP has reached more than 1,800 girls.

Julia first learned about CYP when it was a recipient of Briarcliff’s Girl Scout troops’ annual gift drive and wrap last year and CYP founder Elisha Simpson visited the troops to thank them. She told them about the girls who would receive the presents - teenagers with traumatic pasts who show up to their yoga mats every week; some sit there with hoods pulled up tight over their heads, others try out the stretches and listen to the message, and a few stay quiet in the back but leave the most renewed, having heard the messages to never let their pasts define them. Elisha explained to the young girl scouts about the challenges her yogis have faced, the odds they’ve overcome and how they ended up participating in CYP, which is through various channels created to support at-risk teens.

“It really spoke to me because the girls are around my age and I just never knew how underprivileged my peers could be,” Julia said. “It really made me realize how fortunate I am and want to share some type of positivity with people who didn’t have that in their lives.”Julia saved some of her birthday gift money to buy supplies and started creating small posters and writing “notes of positivity.” Then she recruited other scouts and friends to join in her. She received further inspiration when she suffered a fracture that kept her from her ballet practice for eight weeks. From there, the notes grew into the Silver Award project, which resulted in dozens of cards and posters for CYP girls.

“She imagined how these other girls felt, knowing her life was interrupted for a short time but many of them had lived through much worse and, in some cases, for most of their lives,” said Julia’s troop leader and mom, Tippy Lucarelli.

“It is just incredible to see someone so young recognize how a small thing like this can brighten up someone else’s entire day, or week, without ever meeting each other,” says Simpson. Because the girls of CYP are survivors of traumas, their identities are kept confidential to protect them.

“I’m very proud. It has taught me not to take what we have for granted and to try our best to teach that to our kids,” Tippy said.

Julia will continue her work with sixth and seventh graders so they can continue inspiring CYP participants with their positive cards and artwork.

The Crossover Yoga Project is running a #GivingTuesday campaign on Tuesday, November 28, which is a global day of giving powered by social media. CYP’s campaign is titled #GivingEmpowerment, and is live now through November 28. To donate or get involved, visit facebook.com/cypconnect.

CYP will be offering training to yoga teachers who have completed their 200 hour teacher training on January 5-8 at Happy Buddha Yoga at 2 N Church Street, Goshen, New York. For more information, visit crossoveryogaproject.org or call 914-219- 4010.

Photo courtesy of Crossover Yoga Project