My Girl Scout Experience by Taylor

My Girl Scout Experience by Taylor - January 2017 Scholarship Essay

When you think about Girl Scouts your first thought is probably cookies. Girl Scout cookies are pretty good, but we are and do so much more than that. I First joined Girl Scouts when I was 4 and a half. I am now almost 18 and will be bridging out into an adult this year. Girl Scouts has taught me multiple things from life lessons to important skills. Most importantly though it has taught me how to appreciate my community.

Growing up giving back to my community was something I did often and learned to enjoy. We caroled to the elderly, fundraised for those in need and picked up our community parks and streets. Nothing could beat the faces from those who we helped. Being a young girl this inspired me to do big things and make a difference in my community. I am now working on my Gold Award which is the highest award you can achieve in Girls Scouts. My prerequisites for the award consisted of two take action projects. My first project was with my church. Together we raised over one thousand Christmas presents. We held an event and passed them all out to families in our community that was in need. My second project was with my school. I saw a problem happening in my school so I made a presentation and gave it to the school board. This problem was that we had many students lacking credits and weren't on track to graduate. To help with this I made a credit recovery class so that students can make up credits during school. This class has been approved and we already have students signing up for second semester. I am now working on my Gold Award and for this I will be making an Informational video about mental health. I will present this to my High School and other schools in the area. I want to change the stigma that is attached to mental health. I will inform the students in my community that it's ok if they're struggling and I will give them the resources they need to get help.

My community is very important to me. I don't like to see people struggle and I always do everything in my power to help them. Girl Scouts has been a huge part of this and has shaped me into the person I am today. I plan on continuing giving back to my community once I bridge out this year. I believe that this passion will live inside of me forever and I can see that my community will achieve great things.