Highest Award Heroes

Highest Award Heroes

The three highest awards in Girl Scouting – Bronze Award, Silver Award, and Gold Award – give girls the chance to do big things while supporting issues they care about, and while the girls are the stars of the show, there are countless adults and volunteers supporting the girls from behind the scenes!

We are pleased to present three Service Units that have been awarded the Leadership Knot. The Leadership Knot recognizes Service Units who fully committed themselves and effectively assisted girls in earning the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards. This support distinctly enhanced the Girl Scout mission by helping girls impact the community and create positive change.

Service Unit 621, Rock United

Service Unit 642 Manatawny

Service Unit 648, Horizon

Wondering how your Service Unit can step up its highest awards game? Read on to hear from Greta Gurdikian-Wiley about how the Rock United Service Unit supports and encourages their girls!

Making new discoveries and taking action in the world around us has been something that we as Girl Scouts believe passionately. We begin learning this as Daisies, implement it during our thirteen years as Girl Scouts, and expand on it during our adult lives.

The middle school and high school years are often the most difficult times for most girls. Many girls have time constraints due to school work, sports, instrument lessons, religious schooling, and other club activities. So how are they going to make time to earn the Girl Scout Silver and Gold Awards with all these activities pressing on their time? It all starts with a well-informed leader who has a strong Service Unit network. The Rock United Service Unit (Service Unit 621) has two Silver and Gold Award Advisors who are available whenever troops or individual girls need help learning about the award requirements, expanding their project ideas, or anything else highest awards-related! Leaders can contact the advisors and ask them to come talk at a troop meeting, and once the girls are on their way completing their Proposals, the girls can call or e-mail the advisors with specific questions.

Another important individual that every Girl Scout needs is a parent who is a “cheerleader” for their daughter. It can be a mother, a father, or a guardian. These girls are young, and yes, the leaders and advisors are there to help their daughter with the process, but it’s the parent that is around their child the most, so she or he should be the cheerleader: they should be interested and excited about the possibility of earning this award. A great dinner conversation could be about ideas for the project or asking a simple question such as, “Do you need anything?”

One of the biggest benefits that a Girl Scout gets from earning the Silver and Gold Awards is the ability to connect with others. These connections are to both fellow teenagers and adults. During these years, girls have fear and sometimes anxiety communicating to fellow teenagers to ask them to be on their team for their project. Girl Scouting does an excellent job implementing the need to teach leadership by requiring the Girl Scout to lead a team to accomplish the project.

Another important connection that the Girl Scout learns is the ability to communicate with adults. When a Girl Scout is following through with an idea for a Silver or Gold Award project, she is contacting adults by phone, by e-mail, and in person to specify what she will be accomplishing for her project that will benefit their organization. This is such an amazing skill to master at a young age.

Earning the highest awards in Girl Scouting will be part of each girl for the rest of her life. When a Girl Scout applies to colleges, it will be on her application and it is highly admired by colleges and universities. If your daughter does earn the Gold Award, it will be on her employment resume and companies highly favor these women as these employers know these women are already leaders. These young women are now empowered with strength, knowledge and leadership to persevere and accomplish anything they start.

Interested in helping girls earn the highest awards? Email girlawards@gsep.org to see how you can support girls!