Manassas Teen Earns Girl Scouts' Highest Honor For Period Poverty Project

MANASSAS, VA – A Manassas high schooler has earned the Girl Scouts' highest honor for building a sustainable, impactful project to counter ignorance and "period poverty."

This year, Abigail, an 11th-grade student at Virginia Virtual Academy, is among nearly 3,000 Gold Award Girl Scouts who spent more than 307,000 hours volunteering toward their projects and raised more than $2.1 million to bring them to fruition, according to the Girl Scouts.

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Abigail tells Patch she became interested in period education after experiencing her own painful periods and realizing how little she'd been told about some very common period complications. Tackling period poverty along the way made sense, as it's another widespread but underdiscussed issue, she says.

Her project, "Power to the Period," is an initiative that provides free menstrual products and education to girls in and around Abigail's Manassas community. The project includes a free period pantry at Northern Virginia Family Service's SERVE campus in Manassas, where menstrual products are made freely available to anyone in need, as well as educational workshops for girls led by Abigail herself and a website to provide more resources and a channel for donations.

Abigail, whose family asked that Patch not share her last name, says the project has gotten a really positive response so far from both medical professionals and her peers. "I've definitely noticed how the girls seem a lot happier to have information about their bodies, and I've also noticed during my workshops the parents are also learning things, which is also really good," she says.

She hopes to expand Power to the Period and turn it into a nonprofit that both helps stock local or national period pantries and also helps encourage kids to volunteer – another of Abigail's passions.

The Gold Star Award project arose out of her longstanding love of community service. According to Abigail and her mother, the teen has amassed hundreds of service hours since middle school. She currently volunteers at a local library, where she leads a teen advisory group, and at a historical preservation site near her house.

Perhaps her favorite part of working toward the Gold Award was teaching other girls. "I loved being able to interact with the girls [during workshops]," Abigail said. "I love interacting with people, period – I'm very much an extrovert." She says she'd like to do more community period workshops and that anyone in the Washington metropolitan area who wants to request one should use her website's contact form.

As for the award itself, Abigail says finally earning it is bittersweet. She says she's been thinking about since starting Girl Scouts in kindergarten. "It was, like, my childhood dream growing up. I would see all of the older girls doing their Gold Awards and I was like, I want in on that one."

Abigail was notified of her award in August. It will presented at a ceremony in Washington, DC, in May, according to her family.