Local Girl Scouts Earn Highest Award

Two Barrington Girl Scouts are among the 44 finalists who will be honored on Saturday with a 2012 Gold Award – the organization’s highest honor.

Stephanie Langlois and Michaela Hurley, both juniors at Barrington High School, have completed projects that put them among the finalists. They will be honored at a ceremony at Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet in Cranston.

The girls also are in the running for Young Women of Distinction Awards, which will be presented to three Gold Award recipients whose projects stood out from the others in the areas of creativity, sustainability and impact.

“During our 100th anniversary year, we are proud to present 44 young women of our council who have achieved their Gold Award, the highest award of the Girl Scout leadership experience,” said Jean-Ann McGrane, CEO. “These exceptional young women have taken initiative to make a measureable and sustainable difference in their local or global communities. Earning a Gold Award requires a tremendous amount of hard work and dedication. We want to take the time to recognize their achievement, service and leadership.  With a supportive environment, girls can do anything."

This year’s Gold Award recipients completed projects focused on a variety of issues, including developing an anti-bulling website, creating a bowling league for children with disabilities, supplying toys to a children’s cancer hospital in Sri Lanka, and implementing a drip-irrigation system for a local community garden.

Stephanie’s project is titled “Waste Not.” Here is her description:

"The issue that my project addressed was how to stop fresh produce from going to waste. There were two aspects to my project. The first was to collect fresh produce from the local community. I set up three collection boxes at Rogers Free Library and at the Bayside YMCA. The purpose of this was to collect vegetables for food-insecure households in RI and to educate people that pantries do collect fresh produce. The second aspect of my project was to create a website called www.projectwastenot.webs.com. This website provided recipes using fresh produce, comparisons of the amount of food wasted and the need for fresh produce, nutritional information on canned fresh produce and a list of RI food pantries and their contact information. The purpose of this website was to educate people about how to use their vegetables or how to donate them in order to reduce waste. Overall we collected an outstanding amount of fresh produce, 181.5 lbs., which was donated to the East Bay Food Pantry."

Stephanie plans to pursue a college degree in neuropsychology, oncology or behavior studies. 

Michaela’s project is titled “A Better Beach Is Within Reach.” Here is her description:

"For my Gold Award Project I cleaned up local beaches. I led three community beach clean-ups and implemented a fishing line recycling program. In September 2010 and September 2011, I led two beach clean-ups at Sabin Point Park in East Providence. Both of these clean-ups were part of the International Coastal Clean-up (ICC). The International Coastal Clean-ups are unique because volunteers record types of pollution collected. In June 2011, I led another beach clean-up at Rumstick Point Beach in Barrington. My first beach clean-up motivated me to add the fishing line recycling component to my Gold Award Project. The September 2010 ICC theme was “Hold the Line”; in order to raise awareness of the danger that used fishing lines pose to wildlife. This inspired me to fix the fishing line recycling box at Sabin Point which was broken and abandoned. I constructed a box for Bold Point in East Providence. My initial goal for my Gold Award Project was to collect at least 75 lawn-size bags of debris from the beaches. Instead, my beach clean-ups resulted in the removal of more than 120 bags of debris."

Michaela plans to pursue a degree in biological sciences as part of a pre-med program. She wants to become a doctor.