[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 we have Giovanna with us. Hi.
[00:00:19] Giovanna: Hi.
[00:00:20] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:23] Giovanna: Hi, I’m Giovanna. My project is titled A Kid’s Guide to Radiation Therapy. And over the past two years I have researched, written and donated as well as self-published my book, A Kid’s Guide to Radiation Therapy.
[00:00:37] It bridges the gap in age appropriate resources for children experiencing cancer and needing radiation therapy treatments. And it is formally copyrighted with a Library of Congress control number and it’s bilingual for English and Spanish speaker. And my project currently partners with 12 international hospitals, cancer organizations and libraries to bring my free resource to an estimated 45,000 families annually.
[00:01:05] Sheryl: That’s an amazing impact. How did you choose your project?
[00:01:08] Giovanna: When I was in high school, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was in this period of uncertainty in my life. But one thing that was certain for me was I was about to start my Gold Award project. So I knew I wanted to use my experience in my mother’s experience with cancer to positively impact the cancer community.
[00:01:28] And I was brainstorming for a while. I was having a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do. and one day I was sitting in church and I had this idea to write a book. The idea just came to me and I knew that I wanted to write a book. So I was brainstorming, researching what the needs were out there in the cancer community for resources, and I found that there was a major lack in resources for radiation therapy patients that were children.
[00:01:55] So there weren’t age appropriate. Materials out there at a level that children could understand and seeing that my mom was going through radiation therapy at the time and the need for this resource, I was super excited to start my project and I knew that that’s what I wanted to do.
[00:02:09] Sheryl: I love how you had your big picture and you just kept nicheing down until you found what your real purpose was.
[00:02:18] That’s so wonderful. What added to that to make you decide to make it bi-lingual?
[00:02:23] Giovanna: Living in Southern California, there are a lot of Spanish speaking people in the community as well as in the hospitals. And sometimes the most comforting thing when either you are going through a cancer treatment or your child’s going through cancer treatment is to be able to.
[00:02:40] Understand things at a child’s level in the language that you’re most comfortable reading in. So I knew I wanted to make it available for Spanish speakers, but also because I wanted an international aspect to my project. So it is available internationally and some places like Spain use it in their organizations.
[00:02:59] I have a hospital in Florida, university of Florida Health uses it for their Spanish speaking patients as well.
[00:03:05] Sheryl: How did you connect with those partners where your book is available for them to have?
[00:03:10] Giovanna: I found that networking was super pivotal for the donation phase of my project. I just started reaching out to different cancer organizations.
[00:03:20] I looked up some lists of cancer organizations and started reaching out to their board members. In some cases it was a rejection. But there happened to sometimes be people on the board who were able to redirect me. One example that comes to mind is when I reached out to a certain cancer organization and they weren’t accepting books at that time, so they declined a donation, but one of those board members happened to be the chief of oncology at University of Florida Health, so he was able to bring my book into their hospital through that.
[00:03:49] So I think that’s a really cool aspect of being able to partner with different people, is the other opportunities that can come with it.
[00:03:58] Sheryl: Networking is so important. Your book is beautifully designed. How did you plan your book and what, what did you learn about publishing a book during this process?
[00:04:10] Giovanna: I was working with my mentor, she’s a child life specialist, the director of Child Life at Miller Children’s Hospital here in Long Beach,
[00:04:18] and she had given me a few copies of books on different topics that the hospital uses to teach children, and I kind of followed that format of having a page of texts and an image to go with it. I also. Received a book when I was younger that was bilinguals in English and Spanish, and I liked how it had that line of English text and then underneath it had the Spanish, so I wanted to do that as well.
[00:04:45] I have a lovely illustrator. Her name is Naah Haley, and she did all the lovely illustrations for me. Starting with this lovely cover here. So here’s my book, and I love that she was able to take my descriptions. I knew what I wanted in my head, but I just couldn’t put it down in the illustration. She did it so amazing.
[00:05:03] So we have a page of text in here and then we have the image to go with it. and in the self-publishing process, I just started looking at different articles online. I watched some videos of people who would self-publish their work, and I kind of just followed that model. I wrote the book and then I reached out to some printing companies to have my book printed.
[00:05:25] I got my formal copyright and then registered it with the Library of Congress so it can be in there.
[00:05:30] Sheryl: The information that you have in your book is so informative, yet still written for that pediatric patient. How did you balance that and who did you work with in gathering the information?
[00:05:43] Giovanna: So I researched for about a month.
[00:05:46] I worked with two different hospitals and I worked with a variety of different medical professionals, so a radiation therapist, a radiation oncologist. I worked with a lot of child life specialists, so those are the people in the hospital that try to make the hospital experience fun for their patients.
[00:06:02] And that work directly with those pediatric patients that are going through treatments and they’re taking them to radiation therapy. So they’re seeing that constantly. And I worked with them to kind of immerse myself in the patient experience. I wanted to see what it was like to be the patient and go through that.
[00:06:21] And it was really helpful for my mother to be going through treatment at the time, unfortunately, because, I was able to see that patient perspective, but I also was able to meet some people who allowed me to do that as well. So one person was this lovely radiation therapist who walked me through the procedure of making a radiation mask.
[00:06:39] So I have this mask of my face, and this is used for if a patient needs. Radiation in their head for a head tumor, a neck tumor, sometimes for a chest tumor, and they put this mask on them to make sure that they don’t move around during treatment. Make sure that the treatment gets that special spot that it needs, and I found that this is one of the most anxiety-inducing experiences for that patient.
[00:07:03] So being able to have this made and understand exactly what the kiddos are going to be going through that read my book was really helpful for creating different images in the book with my illustrator, such as this one where they’re going into that CT scanner, they’re working with the different radiation therapist, the oncologist, maybe an anesthesiologist.
[00:07:25] So they can see exactly what it’s like. So I researched for about a month with them and I worked with a team of child life specialists to edit the book and make sure it was kiddo friendly.
[00:07:34] Sheryl: Your book really, really is beautiful. Congratulations on it. What did you learn about the gold award process as you went through that you didn’t know before you started?
[00:07:44] Giovanna: I didn’t have the best experience with that initial proposal interview. I wasn’t really expecting. What my board exactly wanted from me, and I was a little bit scared that my project was going to get rejected, so I kind of just went through and signed the contract with everything that they wanted me to do.
[00:08:02] I wish I would’ve advocated for myself a little bit more. If I could tell like other Girl Scouts or a younger version of myself. What I would’ve done in that meeting is just remember that I’m not confined to that contract necessarily. As long as you do everything, you can always go above and beyond.
[00:08:18] Sheryl: What was your biggest challenge as you went through the project and how did you overcome it?
[00:08:22] Giovanna: So I was just about to send my book off for printing, and then the Covid 19 pandemic hit. So I was a pandemic project, which was both a blessing but a little bit of a challenge as well. So a lot of those hospitals and organizations that I had been reaching out to before my book was printed. Stopped accepting those printed books, and I had to shift my model from those hard copies to making an ebook.
[00:08:46] And that actually made my project a lot more sustainable and it made it a lot more accessible because instead of just printing like 50 copies of books and then after 50 people, they’re out, you can have one infinite copy that can get distributed as many times as that organization needs. And it was a little bit of a blessing as well, because I got an extension for my project and I was able to reach out to so many more partner.
[00:09:08] Sheryl: What did you learn about yourself during the project?
[00:09:11] Giovanna: I learned to be a little bit more tenacious in that I’m a little bit persevere through some hard times. There were definitely some rejections in the editing process of the book in the donation process from my Gold Award board, and kind of learning how to work through that and overcome that was a really special life lesson.
[00:09:32] Sheryl: What was your experience when you did your final presentation?
[00:09:36] Giovanna: I was really working towards that National Young Woman of Distinction Award, which is no longer available, so I really wanted to plan and prepare for that really well because I wanted to. , get my name out there, share my project. I really enjoyed sharing my final project with that board.
[00:09:55] It was a little bit different, but there was one woman who was from my initial proposal board and it was really cool for her to see how far I had come. And I really liked my interviewer because my main interviewer, because she had worked with a lot of projects that were cancer related, so she thought it was really cool how many young women had gone into that field for their projects.
[00:10:15] Sheryl: How has your project continued to impact you after you’ve received the award?
[00:10:20] Giovanna: So last year my father was also diagnosed with cancer, which was difficult, but it’s also another learning experience for me, and it was a little bit easier for me to work through because I was able to see that impact that my project had made and how that changed my life with my mother’s breast cancer.
[00:10:39] And they’ve both fully recovered, which is another perk of my project, to be able to see that for full circle. . I think it continues to impact me because it reminds me what I was able to do and it shows me that I can do amazing things. As a young woman.
[00:10:58] Sheryl: I see that big red patch that says 2022 on there for the Rose Parade troupe.
[00:11:05] Can you tell us about that experience and what that was like for you?
[00:11:10] Giovanna: If you get your gold award in Southern California in greater Los Angeles Council, you can be part of the Rose Parade Tournament Troop. So it’s an application, something you apply for, and it’s like a second sisterhood outside of the regular troop that you might have.
[00:11:27] I really liked the experience of being able to have the opportunity. Was carrying the, so you carry a banner and you have a team of four girls that you work with. You’re carrying the banner in the award and then you switch off. So I carried the Americana Award for the 2022 Roast Parade, and it’s for the Trader Joe’s flow, which was really fun.
[00:11:46] Such a cool experience.
[00:11:48] Sheryl: Can you give the audience a little background? When did you start prepping for that parade and what work goes into it before the parade?
[00:11:56] Giovanna: I believe we started prepping about three or four months before just to have initial meetings. We could meet everyone. We were able to go to the Wrigley Mansion, which was the tournament house, and we were able to meet some of the rose pageant Queens, the princesses that were going to be participating in that parade.
[00:12:14] We got to meet some officials from the parade and. . Then we went into actually practicing to carry the banners because they’re a little bit heavy and it takes a lot of teamwork. So we would meet at a track in Pasadena and we went around the track like switching off with the banners to make sure that we were prepared for parade day, and then we had the actual parade day.
[00:12:34] So it was a really, really fun experience and takes a lot of physical work.
[00:12:39] Sheryl: What behind the scenes Rose parade thing were you most surprised by?
[00:12:43] Giovanna: Definitely the amount of people that it takes to put that production on. When you’re prepping for it, you see a lot of people working behind the scenes, but the day of.
[00:12:53] you don’t really realize how many people actually go in person to see that from putting up the stands to organizing the floats, to shutting down different roads and freeways to get there to just the people serving food in the morning. Everyone just works together to put on this really cool production for the world.
[00:13:10] Sheryl: What other Girl Scout experiences have you had?
[00:13:13] Giovanna: I wasn’t very active in my troupe when I was in a troupe, but I did do some Girl Scout camp things as a counselor in training when I was in high school, and now I work for a day camp here in Greater Los Angeles. So I’m a lifeguard and a voting instructor, and I really love it because it allows me to continue pursuing those Girl Scout ideals from a work perspective, and I’ve seen a lot of growth in myself from it.
[00:13:37] What are your future plan? Right now I’m studying nutritional science and chemistry, and I’m on a pre-med track, so I’m thinking of maybe going into medicine. My book inspired me being around so many people in the hospital and talking to so many medical professionals. So I’ll either do something in. The medical field or maybe something in the nutrition field, something like that.
[00:13:57] I also wanna continue pursuing my project now that we’re starting to transition solely out of the pandemic, opening it up to more organizations, some more hospitals. I really wanna get it into the library system here in Long Beach and more of that.
[00:14:11] Sheryl: Is there anything else that you’d like to share with the audience?
[00:14:14] Giovanna: If I was able to talk to myself when I first started this project, I would tell myself that you can do anything with this project. It’s your project, and the sky’s the limit. And I would tell myself not to let anybody. Tell you that you can’t do something, there’s always someone that can help you. Just because it’s not the area of expertise for one person doesn’t mean it’s not for the next person.
[00:14:38] So I would tell people that the challenging projects are the most amazing ones. You can do anything, do something you’re passionate about.
[00:14:45] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:14:46] Giovanna: So when I was in high school, I went on a class camping trip and my teacher taught us this way to make s’mores without the graham crackers.
[00:14:55] Cause our graham crackers got crushed. So you take a bar of chocolate and you snap it in half, and then you use those two Hals as the graham crackers. You have your chocolate on the outside and your marshmallow on the inside is pretty.
[00:15:08] Sheryl: That sounds delicious because I’m not a big Graham cracker fan.
[00:15:11] However, I make such a mess whenever I eat s’mores because I’m an ooey gooey, like really melt the marshmallow so that when I put it with the chocolate, it really melts everywhere that I always get chocolate everywhere. So I think I better stick with the Graham crackers.
[00:15:27] Well, thank you so much for joining us.
[00:15:30] Giovanna: Thank you so much for having me. This is such a great experience.
[00:15:33] Sheryl: Make sure to click, follow or subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released. And power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:15:45] Walter: The Hearts of Gold Podcast is brought to you by the Grow and Share Network produced by Off the Walter Media Productions.
[00:15:52] Thank you for listening and spreading the word on what we do. If you want to share your story of how you earned your goal award, reach out and send an email to grow and.
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[00:16:12] That’s youtube.com/Sheryl, the letter M, Robinson. Take care and we’ll see you next time.