[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.
[00:00:11] Sheryl: Welcome to Hearts of Gold. Today we have Anna with us. Hi Anna.
[00:00:16] Anna: Hi. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:18] Sheryl: Thank you for joining us. Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:23] Anna: Yes, so my Gold Award project is called Step to Specs, and it’s something I started back in 2020, actually late 2020.
[00:00:33] I was brainstorming and it was quarantined during that time. So I was in my room a lot and I noticed how many pairs of. Glasses frames I had in my room because I’ve been wearing glasses since the age of five. So they, as my prescription changed over the years, they kind of piled up in my desk drawers.
[00:00:50] And so I thought, well, this is probably an a predicament that other people in my town are in. So I want to collect all these donated glasses and I want to pass them on to new owners and to people who can’t afford them necessarily on their, on their own. So that’s exactly what I started doing. I. Made collection boxes around my town and I reached out to local optometric offices to try to amass enough pairs of glasses to start a distribution program.
[00:01:18] And so after many months of doing this, I had reached about 4,000 pairs of glasses collected. And at that point I was ready to. Start distributing these glasses to patients in need. And so what I was looking for a good partner, a good distribution partner and other doctors that would help me connect me to patients that were in need of, of glasses.
[00:01:39] And so I settled on the L A C U S C hospital, which is the LA County Hospital here. And I partnered with the ophthalmology department and I basically created a online database to catalog all the glasses so that they was easily searchable. And so I would take each pair of glasses and I would clean them, and I would measure each pair with a lensometer and I would input all that information into the database so that we could use different parts of a patient’s prescription to search for a specific frame that would fit the patient’s eyes well.
[00:02:13] So I, that was a whole like, coding thing that I did. And that was new to me. And after I had had cataloged everything, I was able to go to the hospital and actually meet patients and talk to them and use the database to. Put in their prescription and see if we had any donated glasses that were a matching prescription that would be good for the patient and it would allow them to see.
[00:02:38] So that’s basically what I did all of the summer during 2021. And that was really great to meet patients, to hear their stories and to see really how much of a need there is and how grateful they were to get these pairs of glasses. And I worked with a lot of ophthalmologists during that time and a lot of medical students.
[00:02:57] So I during around the same time, I also became a service learning partner of the. School of medicine. So basically we always had a cohort of medical students who were volunteering in the clinic or during full day glasses, clinics that we did outside the hospital. And so it was really great to kind of get help from all, all ends here and Overall, we gave out over a thousand pairs of glasses so far, and the project is still ongoing.
[00:03:23] And we have another clinic coming up next week. So that number is always growing and it’s great to see more patients and to help more people. And the, the last kind of thing I did was I collected some patient data. So essentially I wanted to see how impactful free glasses were on the patients of Los Angeles, especially since we were using donated frames that already that we, and we didn’t take out the lenses, we didn’t make a whole.
[00:03:47] Whole new pair of glasses for these patients. So I wanted to see how, how well these glasses were helping these patients regain that independence and the quality of life. So I gather, I used patient questionnaires and with all that data I compiled about 300 patient testimonies and, and pa range of patient data points.
[00:04:05] And I wrote a research paper about the impact of free glasses, especially using this. This kind of distribution model which was, which is pretty unique in this field. So that was published in the Journal of Student Research and and yeah, overall it was, it’s the, definitely the most impactful part of my project was working with the patients.
[00:04:25] So it’s, it’s been the project that’s kind of defined my high school years and I’m really grateful to have met everyone along the way.
[00:04:32] Sheryl: With your project, you partnered, as you said, with the hospital. Lots of girl Scouts are interested in projects where they would, where a hospital would be a great partner, and it’s sometimes difficult because of HIPAA laws to make those connections.
[00:04:47] How did you work through that?
[00:04:48] Anna: Yeah, that’s definitely a big concern with hospitals. What I did was I emailed a lot of hospitals in my area and I was looking for hospitals with a patient population I wanted to work with. And the nurses were actually the biggest help in, in forming these connections because the nurses were the ones who answered my emails.
[00:05:04] And I also went in person to talk to them and they were kind of the first The first people I talked to in the department and just being friendly with them and talking with them. They ultimately have the connections to the doctors. So kind of first, you know, going through the whole process and talking to the, the nurses who eventually connected me to doctors allowed me to kind of form that connection.
[00:05:28] But yeah, HIPAA laws were definitely a concern, especially when I was collecting data. So, I made sure throughout the project to not to, to fully disclose the patients that none of your data will be, none of your personal data will be collected. And we didn’t have to, we didn’t take their name or anything.
[00:05:44] So just being very upfront with both the patients and the doctors and the nurses allow them to really see that, oh, this is, this is a project where we’re trying to help people and we don’t need really any of their personal information.
[00:05:57] Sheryl: You talked about the nurses and the doctors and the patients.
[00:06:00] Who else was on your team and how did they help you?
[00:06:03] Anna: Yeah, so this project was really a community effort, if anything because it was both the collection and the distribution side of things. So on the collection side I really relied on people in my town. So definitely my project advisor, who was actually my second grade teacher she’s very well connected in the community.
[00:06:21] She’s part of the. Wan Club a part of, like Sister Cities, a bunch of organizations that are really great in our town. And so with her as my project advisor, I was I got access to these like different Kiwanis events that I spoke at. And I, I got connected to the different schools and the principals cuz she had, those were her old colleagues.
[00:06:39] So I was able to kind of explain my project and ask if, if I, it was okay if I could put a collection box in the, in the school or, or ask for donations and things like that. So I relied on my project advisor a lot during that first collection phase of my project. And then on the distribution side, I was working with mainly one ophthalmology resident.
[00:07:02] Her name’s Dr. Cindy Y. And she was just such a big help in both implementing the program and connecting me to patients in need. And. Along with her, of course, the medical students that helped me at the clinics. And also I worked with a few U Ussc undergrad students to, and I taught them how to measure the glasses to kind of speed up production a little bit.
[00:07:24] So it was, overall, it was a, a big group effort and I was just kind of facilitating things and helping people along.
[00:07:32] Sheryl: With creating the software that you needed. As you said, you started with the code it, and you had to code the project and everything. Has anybody else shown interest in that software?
[00:07:42] Because that seems like a component of your project that could really have that global impact.
[00:07:49] Anna: Yeah. The search functions with the prescription is not something I’ve seen before. But it, we kind of modeled it after what you would see on maybe. Glasses store website where you’re trying to input your different pres the different aspects of your prescription into the, into this frame so that they can make it for you.
[00:08:07] But I’ve never seen a search function with prescriptions when it, when it comes to giving out free glasses. So I. Well, no one has like specifically expressed interest. That was something that I included in my research paper. And I kind of explained how I, how I built that and how I went about coding all those functions in.
[00:08:27] And so that research paper is available anywhere online. So any other hospitals that were looking to implement a similar program would be able to look at that paper and, and kind of figure that out and, and be able to recreate it almost on their own because like you said, it’s, it’s a unique part of distribution for free glasses.
[00:08:47] And I think that was really what made my project unique. And I think if you have enough pairs of donated glasses, that works really well as a cost effective way to distribute classes.
[00:08:57] Sheryl: And I’ll make sure to get that link for that paper and put it in the show notes also. What has that paper done for you as you look towards your future?
[00:09:05] Anna: Having independent research was definitely a big boost for my resume and especially since it was in something that I really love doing, and that’s kind of where my passion lay. Being able to really go really deep into an activity and, and distribute glasses and meet patients and publish a research paper that’s shown, I think for me, visits is relevant.
[00:09:25] Colleges how really what I love to do and what I’m passionate about. So that definitely helped me during college applications. And it definitely also familiarized me with the whole research writing and the paper writing process and how long it is at times and how many hurdles you kind of have to jump through.
[00:09:44] So it’s conditioned me for, for that in my future, since I do wanna continue doing research both with patients and in, in the laboratory. So, It was definitely very interesting to kind of start the research from day one, be getting those surveys and then eventually be writing it into a way that other people can understand who perhaps aren’t familiar with my project.
[00:10:06] So the whole writing process was definitely helpful for both looking ahead and also for the college applications.
[00:10:12] Sheryl: Who assisted you with creating that research paper?
[00:10:15] Anna: My dad is actually involved in research, so he kind of showed me how everything should be formatted and how, you know, what the abstract is, what the different components are and how to draw conclusions from the data.
[00:10:27] So that was something that he, we worked together on and it was really great to see almost like how his, his research brain works and see that different side of him.
[00:10:36] Sheryl: What was your biggest challenge during your project and how did you overcome it?
[00:10:40] Anna: I wasn’t super sure about how I wanted to distribute classes in the beginning, cuz I had all these pairs of donated glasses, but I didn’t have a distribution partner.
[00:10:49] So my first thought was I would. Just ship the glasses from my house to whoever it was, it was in need. And they would basically look at my website and order the pair of glasses that they wanted off for free, and then we would ship it to them for free. But that presented a challenge because I wasn’t a licensed physician, obviously.
[00:11:09] So it, it’s actually not legal to distribute glasses to people when you’re not licensed. And so and there was also liability issues where basically the. If the frames broke or anything the patients and patients could possibly sue. You know, we didn’t wanna get in that situation. So I, I realized that I can’t do this all alone and I would ha have to work with a middleman almost to distribute these glasses.
[00:11:35] So that’s the time when I was looking into hospitals to see if I could work with doctors to distribute classes. So the way that we’ve. Kind of solved this problem was we I was in the room with a doctor when we were seeing patients, and I would get the patient’s prescription and I would see if we had any pairs of glasses that matched that patient’s prescription.
[00:11:54] And then ultimately I would get those glasses, but the doctor would hand those to the patients so that the, you know, a licensed provider was actually giving them the pair of glasses. So it was, it just required a little bit more collaboration to solve that issue. And I think the second issue and the larger one is how hard it is to distribute a, a perfect pair of glasses to a patient because we weren’t making the glasses new for these patients.
[00:12:20] So they already had lenses in them. They already had a prescription. And we were trying to find a match between a patient’s prescription and a donated pair that already was, you know, cleaned and washed and everything. So the way that We overcame this was by collecting a lot of glasses. So I think there are over 80 million different prescriptions in that exist in the world because you just have so many components of a prescription and it’s so unique to a person.
[00:12:47] So to, it was just a lot of chance that there wouldn’t be a good match for a patient just because, you know, a patient’s prescription is very specific and we didn’t know if we would be able to have that for them. So I really focused in on collecting at that point. So. We, I, I knew I had to have mass a collection that was big enough so that when we would search with a patient’s prescription, there would be a higher percentage, be a higher chance that, that we would find a good pair of glasses for these patients.
[00:13:15] So that’s the reason why I was so involved in collection and calling these different places and really asking the people in my town if they had pairs of glasses that they would donate. And. And with that stock of 4,000 pairs of glasses, we’ve found that relatively we are usually successful in giving out pa these pairs of glasses.
[00:13:35] So patients usually most commonly want a, a pair of glasses within like a low prescription range. And so I focus on collecting those like lower maybe readers or. Reading glasses, whatever it may be to, so that we would have, you know, we would meet that demand. So it was, it was just, it was a learning process, but it was also understanding what pairs of glasses were more common and where to collect those pairs of glasses.
[00:13:59] Sheryl: What’s a favorite memory from your project?
[00:14:02] Anna: My favorite memories are definitely working with these patients since it’s just, it’s so gratifying to see how much these glasses change your lives. And I think one story comes to mind. And it was like the first pair of glasses, I think one of the first pairs of glasses I’d given out.
[00:14:18] And I was at the hospital and it was new and I didn’t know if this project was gonna work or not. And so this man walks in and he tells me about how much he loves reading and how he hasn’t actually been able to read for the past many years because his insurance didn’t cover glasses and so he wasn’t able to purchase glasses and he just, he, he, he felt his vision fading away, but there was nothing he could do about it cuz the a pair of glasses is just too expensive.
[00:14:45] So I think at one point he told me he had like seven library cards because he loved reading so much. And so, Seeing that his hobby was taken away by, by vision or by the loss of vision was, was so hard to see, but. When we, we went into the the database, I was, I told him, we’re gonna try to find you a pair of glasses.
[00:15:04] And I use his prescription to see if we had a pair of glasses that fit. And lo and behold, I, I search his prescription and we do have a pair of glasses in that range. So I grab that pair of glasses, I run back to the room and I help him try it off. And, and he puts them on and he just looks around the room and I, I’ll just never forget that look in his eyes.
[00:15:22] When he, when he saw the world clearly again, for the first time in a, in a few years, I gave him a paper with a, with some small print on it. And I asked him if he could read it and he, he could read it. And it was just so, it was so amazing to see him just finally able to read again and, and to get back into his hobbies.
[00:15:40] And so, That, that was, that was definitely the first kind of motivating patient story that I experienced and that pushed me to keep distributing glasses and, and since then I’ve, I’ve heard so many other great patient stories about how they’ve been able to, you know, drive again or walk again or see their grandkids even.
[00:16:00] So just working with patients has been the most meaningful part of this project. It
[00:16:04] Sheryl: sounds like you learned so much during your Gold Award project. What did you learn about the Gold Award process itself that might be helpful for Future Gold Award Girl Scouts?
[00:16:15] Anna: When you write your proposal at the very beginning, it’s not set in stone like you.
[00:16:20] They, the girl Scouts understand that that when you start a project, you don’t know what’s gonna happen. Things can change. So I would really encourage other Girl Scouts to not feel so much pressure to think of like the next. Greatest project or, or a million dollar idea because you, you can always modify your project along the way.
[00:16:39] In the beginning, I wanted to, instead of writing a research paper, I wanted to write a children’s book to talk about how the, how to, you know, destigmatize glasses wearing and to you know, to make kids feel proud of wearing glasses. But as I did my project, I realized what the most helpful thing would be would be to spread the information about how I conducted glasses.
[00:17:00] These glasses, clinics and how I distributed glasses. And I thought that would be, that was the most impactful towards helping more people get glasses that are in need. So, realizing that I, I didn’t freak out, you know, I, I, I submitted a, a proposal change for. Form and, you know, it was a small change.
[00:17:18] So I just detailed why I wanted to make that change and, and it was approved. So I was able to, you know, modify my project a along the way. And I think that took a lot of the pressure off at the very beginning. And it, it made me more willing to make mistakes and to venture out. And so I would really encourage girls to just to just go for it.
[00:17:39] To just go in, start it, start making mistakes, and you can change along the way, but you’ll eventually find your way to the to Finished Gold Award project.
[00:17:47] Sheryl: Your council Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles every year has one of the largest gold award Girl Scout classes in the whole country. What do you think contributes to that and what makes being a gold award, girl Scout in your council so special?
[00:18:07] Anna: We do have a lot of gold award Girl Scouts in Los Angeles and especially in, in my town. We, we have a lot of girls go from, from Daisy all the way to the gold award. I. So that’s really amazing to see. And for me personally, I think within my troupe, that was really what pushed me to keep going.
[00:18:24] Because all the other girls in my troupe, we were all doing our gold awards at the same time. And even though, you know, we were working on different projects, we would always support each other during monthly meetings. We would ask how. Our each other’s gold awards were going and we would kind of serve as that accountability each month for each other.
[00:18:42] So being able to do my gold award alongside all my friends who I had been with since, you know, we were daisies, that was really a motivating factor for me. And I think in, in Los Angeles, that’s a. A common thing because we have so many girls that join from such a young age and we grow up in this program, in this council, and we really feel the support from the troop leaders, from the other girl scouts, from the council people.
[00:19:07] And I think that knowing how supported we are and knowing how. Much other people want us to succeed as well. It was really motivating for all of us to wanna go for that gold award. And that’s also what is so special about being in Girl Scouts. I feel like I’ve just found a community that so deeply cares about volunteer work and about others, volunteer work, and really just.
[00:19:28] They were so giving and in supporting us and you know, whether it be through donations or through through monthly meetings, you know, we all are here for each other. And I think that community is really special and it’s not something that can be built quickly. You know, it took, what, 12 years since we were daisies to, to build up this community.
[00:19:47] So I’m very, very grateful to be part of such a special thing. What other Girl
[00:19:51] Sheryl: Scout memories do you have you’d like to share?
[00:19:53] Anna: The one that’s coming to mind right now is just selling cookies every year because I remember when we were we were daisy still, we would sell outside of like Ralph’s or like d local restaurants and we would make these signs and we would just hold up these signs and we would be so proud of them.
[00:20:08] We would, you know, use our markers, use our crayons, and we were just so happy to be selling cookies. Side and people were happy to buy. And I think that was, just doing that every year was really fun to see kind of the progression of how we, how we sold cookies because when we were younger, you know, we would rely on our signs.
[00:20:26] We were really cute, so everyone wanted to buy our cookies. But as we got older, you know, we got more into the strategy of, of how to sell cookies and, and we were thinking about how, like, oh, should we go door to door? Should we, you know, ask our grandparents like they would wanna buy a lot of cookies.
[00:20:42] So it was just doing that every year and, and seeing how we grew and how, you know, how we matured over time. I think that was really special to, to see every year.
[00:20:53] Sheryl: What are you looking for in your future?
[00:20:56] Anna: I do wanna continue this line of volunteer work. So I want to either continue the program at the LA County Hospital, probably remotely since I’ll be leaving for college, or I want to establish another program I.
[00:21:11] At the in the area that I’m going to for college. So in New York. And I think, you know, there’s always a need for, for glasses and, and major insurance companies. A lot of major insurance companies don’t cover glasses, so there will be a need there. And so I do wanna continue working with patients since that was the most impactful part of my project.
[00:21:31] And I will be attending a B S M D program. So it’s a combined it’s an eight year program. It’s combined bachelor’s of science and a medical degree. So I’ll, I’ll directly go into medical school after I graduate college. So it’s, it’s a long program, but I’m looking forward to working. With patients more closely and beyond just giving them free glasses, you know, I want to to, you know, take on more of a, of the doctor role and, and, you know, diagnose them, examine them, and I think I’ll be able to do that as a medical student, as a college student.
[00:22:03] So I, I’m looking forward to continuing to volunteer in hospitals and work with patients. What else would you like to share with the audience? How I feel this project connected my town. I live in a very small town with people in Los Angeles because I would, someone would see, you know, see the flyer to donate and they would take these beloved pairs of glasses at, you know, they, they.
[00:22:28] Event, they had warned them for so long, they had made so many memories in them and they would donate them to me. And I felt like it was almost my responsibility to pass on that story and continue that story using by distributing this pair of glasses to another person. Because oftentimes someone would wear their glasses, they would love them a lot, and then their prescription would change.
[00:22:47] So they, they would kind of just sit in a desk drawer. And so I kind of wanted to revive that story and I wanted to pass on these pairs of classes so that they could have a new life and that, so that, that another person would start making memories in them and would start using them well and would love them.
[00:23:02] Well, it felt almost like I was connecting people from my small town to a patient in need in the big city of Los Angeles. So I, I felt really privileged to be able to connect that the, these people who don’t even know each other and yet have. The same eyes, you know, they have the same prescription. And I felt so lucky to be able to revive that story and kind of help people breathe new life into this.
[00:23:25] So that was definitely just the coolest part of my project and I’m really glad to have experiences in high school.
[00:23:33] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:23:35] Anna: First of all, you know, you have to get the perfect marshmallow, so that means I don’t like it when it gets burned, so I have to, I have to make sure that it’s nice and golden on all sides.
[00:23:44] It takes a little bit more time to do so, but it comes out so much better. And then I, I actually need it, someone else to help me at that point when I’m done with the marshmallow, because I, someone else takes the graham crackers to put a bar of chocolate down and then I, I put my marshmallow in and they.
[00:23:59] They smash the two graham crackers together and I pull out the skewer and then you have a perfect s’mores. Perfectly done. Perfectly golden.
[00:24:07] Sheryl: I agree. I the golden brown melt the chocolate the best.
[00:24:10] Anna: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
[00:24:12] Sheryl: Well, thanks for joining us today.
[00:24:14] Anna: Thank you so much. This was great.
[00:24:16] Sheryl: Make sure to click follow or subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released.
[00:24:22] Power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:24:26] Walter: Thank you for listening. If you’d like to be on the show to share your story of how you earned your gold award, reach out and send an email to growandshare@outlook.com. Be sure to catch up on our previous shows on any of your favorite podcasting platforms, as well as view the full video versions at youtube.com/SherylMrobinson.
[00:24:49] Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next time.