Walter: [00:00:00] The hearts of gold podcast is brought to you by the grow and shared network produced by off the Walter media productions.
[00:00:13] Sheryl: [00:00:13] Welcome to hearts of gold. Today. We have Kara with us. Hi, Keaira,
[00:00:19]Keaira: [00:00:19] Hello!
[00:00:19] Sheryl: [00:00:19] Can you share your girl scout gold award project with us?
[00:00:23] Keaira: [00:00:23] So my girl scout, Gold Award project was to build a dog park in my local community. And it’s in a very. It’s in a very good location. So a lot of people go, a lot of people use it. I’ve actually drove by it multiple times and seeing a bunch of dogs using it.
[00:00:38]It’s definitely big in summer though. Like, There’s like 10, 20 dogs in the dog park at once. So it is very used heavily and there’s equipment in there. So you can chain your dog to like do agility equipment and stuff too. It’s just pretty cool.
[00:00:52] Sheryl: [00:00:52] What made you choose this project?
[00:00:54] Keaira: [00:00:54] I see a lot of dogs walking on the roads with their owners.
[00:00:58] And that’s not very safe because you never know what kind of drivers going to come around the corner. And so I thought it’d be smart idea to have a safe place for the dogs to go and the owners themselves to get the dogs energy out so they could sleep when they get home and probably not play.
[00:01:15] Sheryl: [00:01:15] Who did you work with on your project?
[00:01:17] Keaira: [00:01:17] So I worked with another girl scout. Her name is Katie. She did a handicap accessible playground in the same park as where my dog park is. And I’ve jumped PI by there too. I see it use, it’s a pretty cool thing. There’s a rubber floor and swings for disabled people so that when they swing, they don’t lose their balance.
[00:01:37] Sheryl: [00:01:37] Where is the park located and how did you get the property use?
[00:01:40] Keaira: [00:01:40] The park is called Cola PECA park. It is located on sand spring and coffee town, the corner of San spring coffee town in Schnecksville PA. And how we were able to get the land was the township was thinking about changing up the parks anyway, like adding stuff to it.
[00:01:57] So it was kind of good timing. So they gave us the. The land so we can update their parks. Like they were going to originally plan to.
[00:02:07] Sheryl: [00:02:07] What kind of conversations did you have to have with the township as you were going through those projects?
[00:02:11] Keaira: [00:02:11] So we had to have like a lot of conversations, like how we’re going to play, pay for the parks.
[00:02:16]How are we going to maintain it? And the biggest. The biggest conversation was location, like where we’d be going to put it. There was supposed to be another location for the dog park, but it wasn’t able to be used because the recreational board didn’t want the dog park going there. So that was one of the biggest discussions was where.
[00:02:37] The park is going to be and you also had the discussion where like, what kind of equipment is going to go in there in the dog park, in like what kind of fencing, like all of that.
[00:02:47] Sheryl: [00:02:47] Do you have a special memory from your project?
[00:02:49] Keaira: [00:02:49] Probably working with my friends because I had a core team member And the, my one core team member, she was there with me through everything.
[00:02:58] And so she played a big part in it. And we just had a blast building all the dog park equipment. And there was this one thing we did. We finished building the dog park tunnel. So we made like a tunnel for dogs. And we sat in it. So we were testing out all the equipment. Like we were weaving through the poles, we were sitting in the tunnels, climbing on the ramps.
[00:03:15]So that would have to be my favorite memory was just like, Going on the equipment and just experiencing, experiencing that with my friend.
[00:03:22] Sheryl: [00:03:22] What was your biggest challenge during your project and how did you overcome it?
[00:03:26] Keaira: [00:03:26] Occasion as well, because with the recreational board not wanting the dog park to go where it’s, where it was supposed to go, it put a big damper in the kids.
[00:03:36]We, my first plan was to have it at Cole Pekka park, but it was told that I wasn’t able to go there. So we moved it to that other location. But then the rec board said that it wasn’t able to go there. So knowing that it wasn’t supposed to go at Cola Pekka either it was kind of hard to like figure out like where it’s going to go.
[00:03:51] I wasn’t sure where it was going to go. Neither was township. But eventually they were able to say that it was able to go out Cola, Pekka.
[00:03:57] Sheryl: [00:03:57] You and Katie did a lot of fundraising for your projects. What kind of fundraising did you do and what did you feel was successful about it?
[00:04:05] Keaira: [00:04:05] Yeah, very successful fundraisers.
[00:04:07] We also had not so successful fundraisers, fundraisers as well, but some of our most successful ones we had a meatloaf dinner and a potato bar baked potato bar. So that was a big success. Success. Like we may meet low people, came and bought for the food. They had an open potato baked potato bar.
[00:04:27] We also had another assess. We did a 5k run at Cola picket park. And a lot of people showed up to that. We did, they ran around Cola, Pekka park. It wasn’t really a race. It was more as a fun thing. So that really appealed to people. So they did that. We also did an ice cream social with the dogs.
[00:04:45] So we got the Oxy ice cream and the dogs were able to come and get ice cream and enjoy their ice cream. I was excess. The one that wasn’t such a success was we did a dog show. We only had two dogs participate, so that wasn’t much of his. Much of its success, but it was still fun because I got to see the little dogs dressed up in costumes.
[00:05:06] Sheryl: [00:05:06] Do you have thoughts on perhaps why that last one wasn’t so successful?
[00:05:11]Keaira: [00:05:11] I don’t know, because we put out the information, we advertised it pretty reasonable. But what I think might have affected it, not being successful is people thinking it’s a dog show. Like when you think of dog show, you think of elegant and And professional and stuff.
[00:05:26] So they probably thought of that as a dog Parkinson, a dog show, instead of like a fun dog show. And we even had on the flyers, I was fun dog show, but in their indoc show, you think of like precision and perfection and all that. So that’s probably why it wasn’t as much as its success as the other.
[00:05:44] Sheryl: [00:05:44] Going through the gold award process what did you learn about that process that you didn’t know before that might be helpful to other girls to know?
[00:05:52] Keaira: [00:05:52] So I figured I learned how, like the decisions are made. I learned how ideas are proposed. I learned how to make a presentation. Good enough for the township. To, to approve of the project. So I just learned a lot of like, behind the scenes of like how the township works.
[00:06:07] Like I learned about the government aspect of like community life, which is pretty cool. And I think it’d be very interesting for other girls to learn that too, because it is, it is way more fun than it sounds.
[00:06:20] Sheryl: [00:06:20] What was the theme of your favorite girl scout camp?
[00:06:22] Keaira: [00:06:22] The girl scout camps were when I was younger, so I only really remember one of the girl scout camps. I don’t remember the name, but I know we had so much fun. We slept in tents. And we had to buy all our own food and it was raining that weekend. So it was fun to sleep in tents with rain. And we were in the woods. We did a lot of girl scout activities like we did.
[00:06:42] We did swaps, which were you made. Little things. Like for example, a paper close pain with like puff balls and like a face or whatever on it. So you made a bunch of little stuff like that and you trade them. So you were able to see what other girl Scouts were there and just interact with other girl Scouts.
[00:06:59]So I was pretty cool. That was a pretty cool experience too.
[00:07:01] Sheryl: [00:07:01] What is in your future plans?
[00:07:03] Keaira: [00:07:03] So, this is actually my last year of girl Scouts. So after I get my gold award certificate, I will be finished with girl Scouts because I had gone through the entirety of girl Scouts. I, I started girl Scouts as a Daisy, non mending as an ambassador.
[00:07:17] So that’s all the levels of girl Scouts, but I am going to be going actually in August, I’m going to be studying horses, which is I’m really excited about. And yeah.
[00:07:26] Sheryl: [00:07:26] So what, what prompts horses?
[00:07:28]Keaira: [00:07:28] So I started horse riding lessons a few years ago, but I had to stop writing. But that first lesson I had, when it wasn’t a pony ride, it wasn’t like a carnival ride.
[00:07:39] No one was holding onto the saddle. No one was walking the horse. It was just me and the horse and the saddle. And it was very amazing feeling. And I was like, all right, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to work with horses no matter what. So I looked at colleges and I applied for college that has horses in it and I got accepted.
[00:07:57] So it was just really that first lesson I had that wasn’t a Ponyride that sparked my interest with horses.
[00:08:04] Sheryl: [00:08:04] It’s amazing. What sparks your interest and then you remember forever and impacts the rest of your life. Isn’t it?
[00:08:11] Keaira: [00:08:11] Yeah.
[00:08:12] Sheryl: [00:08:12] Any words of inspiration?
[00:08:13] Keaira: [00:08:13] So, yeah, I had that actually If you, if anybody is going to do like a big project, like I did, or want to go to college or anything the best thing I can tell them is don’t give up, there will be bumps in the road, but you will overcome them if you’re persistent enough to overcome them.
[00:08:29]And you will definitely accomplish your dreams. If you’re persistent enough to do it.
[00:08:33]Sheryl: [00:08:33] How do you make your smores?
[00:08:35]Keaira: [00:08:35] I do a graham Cracker, then I toast the marshmallow golden Brown as best as I can. And then I put it on top of the chocolate and smush it together and pull it off the stick.
[00:08:46] Sheryl: [00:08:46] Well, thanks for joining us today.
[00:08:48] Make sure to click, follow or subscribe. So you always know when new episodes are released. And don’t forget to power your passion, and conquer your challenges.
[00:09:00] Walter: [00:09:00] The hearts of gold podcast is brought to you by the grow and share network produced by off the Walter media productions. Thank you for listening and spreading the word on what we do.
[00:09:10] If you want to share your story of how you earned your goal award, reach out and send an email to growandshare@outlook.com. Be sure to listen to the newest episodes on your favorite podcast app, as well as view the full video episodes on youtube.com/SherylMrobinson. That’s youtube.com/Sheryl, the letter M, Robinson. Take care and we’ll see you next time.
