On and Off Campus Blog: Earning The Girl Scout Gold Award
By: Caroline Dudzinksi ’26
On March 21, I earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the internationally-renowned highest achievement a Girl Scout can earn.
What is the Gold Award, you may ask? The standard answer is that it is comparable to the Boy Scouts’ Eagle Scout award. Girl Scouts’ mission is to teach girls to be confident and make a positive difference in the world. The Gold Award, as the highest Girl Scout achievement, is much in line: the requirement to earn the award is to make a lasting positive change in the community.
My project was to lead a creative writing course at the Brighton Branch of the Boston Public Library. I created ten creative lessons on everything from diction and syntax to characterization, culminating in an open-microphone party for all the children to celebrate their work. Below, I have included a section of my final report of my project, which was approved by the Gold Award Council:
I learned that I am a much more confident and capable person than I previously thought. I became a Girl Scout when I was six years old because I wanted to grow into an independent and self-assured young woman; the Gold Award was always my dream because I wanted to make a difference in the world. I am an introvert by nature, and so I was always a little nervous around strangers. Yet, I knew I had to be brave and meet new people if I wanted to fulfill my goals and earn the Gold Award.
I worked hard to network and found a partnership with the Brighton Library and Ms. Hahn (my close advisor and library liaison for the project). I also was worried I would have difficulty working and connecting with children several years younger than myself. These worries proved unnecessary—the children welcomed and looked up to me because I was prepared and enthusiastic about the class.
The best part of working on my Gold Award, to my surprise, was working with all the other people involved, including the children themselves, Ms. Hahn, my student volunteers, teachers, and other librarians. I became a lot more social over the course of my project and am proud of my new abilities in reaching out to and collaborating with others. I was also surprised regarding the sheer impact of my project: the participant Malachi attended every session and went from loathing to truly falling in love with creative writing. I never knew that I could make such an impact on someone else’s life.
When I graduate high school in just a year, I will no longer be a Girl Scout, but I feel that the lessons I have learned through my time as a Girl Scout will stick with me forever, especially my Gold Award achievement.
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