[00:00:00] Walter: The hearts of gold podcast is brought to you by the grow and share network produced by off the Walter media productions.
[00:00:13] Sheryl: Welcome to hearts of gold today. I’ve Emma with us. Hi Emma.
[00:00:18] Emma: Hi.
[00:00:19] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your girl scout gold award project?
[00:00:22] Emma: I did a project called caring for our community, which I addressed the global issue of civic engagement and how I came up with this idea. Was a lot of people, a lot of teams specifically in my community, I noticed weren’t being very civically active participating in different ways.
[00:00:43] And I know some thing that I’ve always enjoyed doing is being involved in my community through different. So I thought this is an issue that I think probably expands farther than my, just my local high school. So I did research and I found out that civic engagement is something that lacks among teams in the United States as a whole, and also my local community for several reasons.
[00:01:06] The, it can be because there’s not necessarily a lot of education about it, how to be involved, different ways you can be involved at schools and. Something called a civic desert, which is where there’s not a lot of civic engagement opportunities necessarily in an area. So once I knew this was something I wanted to address, I decided to reach out to my local public library because I’ve always loved going to the library.
[00:01:35] It’s been someplace that I’ve grown up in and it’s a place where people. Go to be involved in their community. So I reached out to them and I based my project to be a collaboration with the, my local library, the Peachtree corners library. So one part of my project was a two program in person series. I called it a weekend of civic engagement.
[00:01:59] It was a Saturday Sunday event where on Saturday I addressed community service. That area of civic engagement and I had different community service activities that teens could come and do during that day. And the second day, I decided to address caring for the environment in the community. For example, recycling.
[00:02:21] Park cleanup days, things like that. So I did a program centered on that and the second part of my program was actually a digital video series. I titled it a seek engagement for teens, and it was a three video series that I posted to YouTube and it focused on three different sections of civic engaged.
[00:02:44] One was community service. One was the environment, just like the in-person programs. And then I actually did a third video in this series and it was how to participate in the local government, different ways you can be involved. And I actually interviewed two different government officials and you’d the mayor and also a school board representative to be in that video and all of these centered around how can teams be involved in the community.
[00:03:12] The, seeing how simple it can be different ways to get involved and also to motivate them to be involved because it is something that necessarily people might not teams might not know how to do, or they might know how to look for different opportunities. So this is my way of trying to get more civic engagement among the younger ages in my community.
[00:03:35] Sheryl: What kind of feedback did you get from your event?
[00:03:38] Emma: So each of my in-person programs were very well attended. I had about. 30 people each day, come by to the local library. They were all very interested in the different community service projects on Saturday and doing the recycled art project on Sunday.
[00:03:57] To see different ways of civic engagement and community service that they can do. And they all gave great feedback. They said it was very helpful and informative for them to find new ways to get involved. And also they found out that civic engagement. It doesn’t have to be something serious. You can also have, have fun doing.
[00:04:19] And my video series also had great feedback. I had, I don’t know the exact number, but I know. Over 50 views on all three videos combined. When I last checked, which is a great number of views on something. So I guess, educational of a video.
[00:04:38] Sheryl: What was your biggest challenge during your project and how did you overcome it?
[00:04:42] Emma: Definitely the time in which I was completing my project, I did my project this past summer June through July, August-ish of 2021. And when I first started my, my, the planning stage for my project, it was in the height of COVID. So I, you know, in-person stuff wasn’t really necessarily a possibility. So originally I actually didn’t even have an in-person component to it, which I was a little, I was a little disappointed in because I knew doing something in person is really a great hands-on way for people to get involved and learn.
[00:05:20] So it was really challenging to at first, try to come up with ways that I could still, you know, make an impact and be helpful and spread the message while also doing it in a safer platform because of whatever, what was happening. However, when I did my project, I actually did the in-person parts in August of 2021.
[00:05:43] And by that point, the library started allowing in-person events to happen. So at that point, then I was able to transition into adding on the two pers two-part in-person programs to do a more hands-on part of my project.
[00:05:58] Sheryl: Do you have a favorite memory from your project?
[00:06:00] Emma: The environmental craft day I think that was my favorite day, because during that day it was just such an interesting craft.
[00:06:09] It was, we made wind chimes out of old recycled cans and. Bottle caps from soda cans and stuff, those little bottle caps, and we made wind chimes out of them and just all the people that came to that event and also the community service event too. But who came to that event, they were all very excited to do the project and everyone was having fun.
[00:06:31] And I just, I just think that it ended up being really successful of any, any event. And I think that was my favorite part was just seeing that. Everyone’s enjoying my event. It’s it’s successful. And I, I know I’m making an impact in doing so.
[00:06:46] Sheryl: Who is on your gold award team and how did they assist?
[00:06:49] Emma: My gold award coach.
[00:06:51] Who is someone that my girl scout council assigned to me to help me with the more behind the scenes work like the proposals, the final reports, getting stuff approved through girl scout council. And then another huge part of my team was the librarians at the public library. Because I had to do a program outline and get that approved by the Gwinnett county public library system.
[00:07:15] And so I got that approved and the librarians also helped me with setting up for the events advertising for the events. There’s a teen advisory council at my library, which I’m also a part of and we help plenty events and stuff. So they were part of my team as well as the librarians and running event, helping to be volunteers to lead people, tell people.
[00:07:38] What the projects were, things like that. And then my girl scout troup, I had a lot of girls in my girl scout troop that wanted to help in a different stages. And my girl scout leaders were also very helpful on my team.
[00:07:52] Sheryl: While going through the process, what did you learn about the gold award process itself that you didn’t know beforehand?
[00:08:01] That could be helpful to somebody else going through that?
[00:08:04] Emma: There’s a lot of behind the scenes, like paperwork and things that you need to do before you can even get started on your project. I know for me personally, that was something I struggled with in the beginning. Was really making sure I got my, my gold award proposal to be its best.
[00:08:24] So I could get approved by girl Scouts and my girl scout interview to start my project. So I would, I would definitely say that for girls in the future who are starting the girl scout project, the proposal and the final report, they may seem long and tedious writing answers to all those questions, but they’re very helpful.
[00:08:43] Very helpful in making sure you’re having ironed out plans, flushing out anything that, you know, isn’t necessarily good making tweaks and edits, things like that.
[00:08:54] Sheryl: You are also involved in four H. How do you see four H comparable to girl Scouts and where does it differ?
[00:09:01] Emma: They both do a lot of community building events, and honestly,
[00:09:05] they’re both civically engaged programs, girl Scouts. I’ve done so many activities in my community, whether it be community service or just going to fun events and four H just the same. I do community service at my four H and I also do different, you know, four H like activities over the summer or during the year.
[00:09:25] And they both really focus on growing the next generation of people. They really focus on making, making you better. Learning new things and just growing as a person, as you become older.
[00:09:39] Sheryl: I encourage girls as that are active in lots of other organizations to consider how. Different activities can compliment each other with four H and girl Scouts.
[00:09:51] I’m in a rural area. So we have lots of girls that are in both activities. Oftentimes things that girls do in girl Scouts, they can take and submit to the fare or activities they’re doing in four H can feed into other journeys or Badger work that they’re doing in girl Scouts. Do you have some examples of where that’s happened in your life?
[00:10:11] Emma: Something I do every year in four H is called DPA, which is just your project achievement. And that’s a public speaking competition of sorts where there’s a weekend and you go, you pick a topic. For example, I normally pick history as a topic for my public speaking. I, I love history. I love learning about different historical events.
[00:10:33] But you go this week during this weekend and you make a presentation about it. And so that’s really helped my public speaking skills. And that really helped me in girl Scouts and specifically my girl scout gold award in talking to people about my event, sharing the message that.
[00:10:52] Sheryl: In addition to four H you are a athlete and involved in lots of other different organizations.
[00:11:00] Can you tell us about some of those activities and how do you balance all of them together?
[00:11:05] Emma: Definitely the activity that I do most outside of school is swim team. I do competitive clubs, USA swim during the whole year. And so that takes up a lot of my time during the week I swim like 12 hours a week ish during the regular season.
[00:11:24] So that takes up a lot of my time, but then I also tried to find time to do other activities. For example, I volunteer at the local. I volunteered at the library. I helped shelf books or read to younger kids or do other programmings, things like that. And Scouts is also something else that takes up my time.
[00:11:45] That I try to find time for and in finding balance it’s just, I just make sure that I plan ahead planning. I love a good planner. I love to plan out everything that I do. So that really helps me in bouncing, writing things down, seeing what I have when, and so I can best plan to fit in different events or activities that I want to do with the other things that I’m also doing.
[00:12:10] Sheryl: Another opportunity that you had is that you were the U S ambassador to Ecuador. Can you tell us about that experience?
[00:12:18] Emma: During the summer of 2020 I was selected to be a United States youth ambassador to Ecuador as. A program run through the state department. So originally asked us to go to Ecuador and have a three week program there.
[00:12:35] However, because it was in 2020, it ended up being a six week virtual event over the summer. And I had an Ecuadorian host family that I got to meet with the six weeks program, really focused on multiculturalism and community. And after that event after the six week programming, we did a CBI, which is a community-based initiative.
[00:12:58] And I focused on food insecurity in my local community and did a 4th of July food drive in which I collected canned goods through different areas in the community. And then I donated them to different food banks and co-ops in my local area.
[00:13:15] Sheryl: You are also going to get to experience a trip that I would have would love to do coming up.
[00:13:22] And that is to go on a destination trip to Italy. What is that destination trip?
[00:13:26] Emma: My sister and I are both going, which I’m very excited about. We applied and got selected to be in the girl scout destination this summer called cuisine and culture in Northern Italy. So this July, the end of July will be 10 days in Italy going to different stops.
[00:13:45] We’re hitting the big cities in Northern Italy going to Milan Florence, Rome. And while we’re there, we’re going to taste all of the cuisine that is in Italy, which is very exciting.
[00:13:59] Sheryl: I have traveled to Italy on the food is exquisite. I am, You are guys are going to have an amazing time. What other girl scout experiences have you had that you’d like to share?
[00:14:09] Emma: Father-daughter camping. I do that. It’s an annual event and we go to. Camp in the mountains. It’s called camp Misty mountain. And it’s a mountain jubilee weekend. And my dad and my sister and I we’ve gone for 10 or 12, 10, 11 years, possibly something around there we go every year. It’s a great weekend.
[00:14:31] We do a lot of fun activities and within my council and my county and my service unit, something every year is the bake-off and I love baking. So the bake-off is one of my favorite activities to do. I have won a few bake offs in my time doing them. And so that’s a fun activity. And definitely we’re thinking that we actually just had world thinking day this past weekend, and my troop did a presentation on a country.
[00:15:05] And basically world thinking day. If you don’t know, is where it’s a day. Different troops set up present posters and boards about different countries. For example, my trip this year did Georgia the country, and you set up a, a board about presentation, you know, the history, culture, food, geography, stuff like that, and food for the table.
[00:15:27] And you get to go around and look at all the other presentations of other girl scout, troops taste their food. And then another part that I like is the swaps. So you make a little. swap which is just like a souvenir I guess from each country and you get, you can put it on a linear and you can see all the different countries you’ve visited throughout the day.
[00:15:45] Sheryl: What was an interesting fact that you found out about Georgia while preparing for thinking day?
[00:15:50] Emma: The clothing that they wear and their traditional dress I thought it was very pretty. And, and the different cultural aspects of it, I thought were very interesting. And also I learned about their most popular snack, which they call the Georgian Snickers.
[00:16:07] However, it is not like a American Snickers, it’s not a candy bar its a little different than that. I thought that was interesting that they call it the Georgian Snickers.
[00:16:18] Sheryl: For the other countries that were present what was the most interesting thing that you got from the other countries?
[00:16:23] Emma: Going back to Italy, Italy was one of the posters there, and I thought it was just very interesting to learn about the country that I’m going to be going to this summer.
[00:16:32] So I learned more information about some little food things that I can expect to do. And just the more, more information about the culture. Sightseeing spots to look at while we’re in different cities and things like that. What plans do you have for your future? I know that I want to do something international.
[00:16:51] Or languages related. So I want to do something in international affairs or learning different languages.
[00:16:58] Sheryl: How do you make your smores?
[00:16:59] Emma: I like to make my smores very classic way. I like to have my marshmallow very golden brown, not burnt. I do not like my marshmallows on fire. Unlike some people I do not like them.
[00:17:12] like that. But a nice golden brown. Sometimes I like to add chocolate, but most of the time, I just like a marshmallow and Graham crackers.
[00:17:21] Sheryl: Well, thanks for joining us today.
[00:17:23] Emma: Thank you for having me.
[00:17:24] Sheryl: 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.
[00:17:36] Walter: The hearts of gold podcast is brought to you by the grow and share network produced by off the Walter media. Thank you for listening and spreading the word on what we do. If you want to share your story of how you earned your gold award, reach out and send an email to grow and share@outlook.com.
[00:17:54] 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.