[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 Janae Rose with us. Hi.
[00:00:16] Janae: Hello everybody.
[00:00:18] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:21] Janae: So my Girl Scout Gold Award project is called Youth Connect Charlotte.
[00:00:25] And I noticed that there is a big issue of segregation in Charlotte, my home city. And as someone who’s. You know, born and raised in that city, I’ve been able to see a lot of different sides. I’ve seen parts that are more black and I’ve seen more of the higher income white neighborhoods because of where I went to school.
[00:00:44] And I saw how there’s so many similarities between the youth from different sides of Charlotte, but because of informal and like just the way that social circles end up in access to different spaces ends up, these people often don’t get to interact. So I was specifically interested in the juvenile justice system and I found this wonderful program called transforming Youth Movement.
[00:01:07] And they already work with students who are court referred or referred by their schools for this program that gives them chances to interact with the community in positive ways through work and connect with the arts. So my idea pretty much was to take the participants in transforming youth youth movement and have them meet people from other areas that I’m used to interacting with.
[00:01:29] Like, for example, from my private high school and other circles of Charlotte, and get kids talking about what issues they see in Charlotte, what they love about Charlotte, and also getting to know each other on a different level because I genuinely believe that a lot of change happens. Just by everyday casual conversations and things can be a blend of, you know, more social justice and civic engagement oriented, but also we just start with the foundation of just getting to know each other and seeing that we’re not that different.
[00:01:56] Sheryl: How did you find the transforming organization?
[00:02:00] Janae: I actually found them going out and looking at the general, like North Carolina Juvenile crime Prevention Council. And that’s a statewide thing. Most states have them they have different levels of funding just for various reasons. So some of them are bigger, some of them are smaller.
[00:02:16] And I was just going through organizations within Charlotte that were getting funding from the JCP C, which is the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council. And I was reaching out to a few organizations and. Time, which is for, for transforming youth movement. They were the people that were the most eager to like help me and their goals and their projects already aligned well with my goals and like my idea was to meet over the summer and they already had a wonderful summer program set up.
[00:02:43] So I was able to work with that and that’s the reason why I picked them. And yeah, so I think it’s very important to have a community partner who understands your vision and is excited to help you execute it.
[00:02:54] Sheryl: And then how did you find the other group of teens?
[00:02:58] Janae: That one was a bit harder, I will say, because I just tried to canvas different areas by putting up posters.
[00:03:05] I created social media accounts and then I also just used word of mouth and that ended up being the most helpful because I mean, with a limited budget of a Girl Scout gold word, you can’t launch like a whole media campaign. So I would say like, At first, I was really trying to get out to people that maybe I didn’t necessarily know, and I did get there, but I had to get there through my friends.
[00:03:25] And that ended up being still a very rewarding and fulfilling process.
[00:03:28] Sheryl: What kind of feedback did you get from the participants?
[00:03:31] Janae: I had to realize that I had to step outside of myself a bit more when I was coming up with programming ideas and many participants. After the first meeting, I already saw like things that I needed to change and I was iterably working on changing them.
[00:03:45] For example, we had our book club and I was like, okay, I love reading. I grew up reading like, that’s my thing. And I was like, okay, well I know not everybody loves to read, but we’ll start easy. We’ll start with audio books. We’ll start with like, you know, not super, a higher level, more approachable, like with the lower bearer to entry for these tax.
[00:04:04] But even then people still were just not really rocking with the book club idea. And I was like, okay, well what if we turn it to a conversation club? Like you start with like a small snippet and then just talk about it from there. Maybe go with a short poem and then see how people are feeling. And that was definitely an improvement just with engagement overall and people feeling like, okay, this is something that I actually am excited to do and like, cause the focus was always for me was the conversation that would come out of the books.
[00:04:30] But if people aren’t really in the space to just read a whole book over the summer, then I shouldn’t force them to do that. And we can still get to the same outcome of having a meaningful engaging conversation without the extra work of reading.
[00:04:44] Sheryl: What other kind of activities did you plan for your sessions?
[00:04:47] Janae: So we had a few outings. We went to the mint Museum uptown in Charlotte. And. They have a lot of different styles of art, so that was helpful. I think there was an African American art exhibit going on at the time, which was helpful because a lot of the participants were black. We had general session meetings, which were with everybody in the group, and then we had smaller groups like the Conversation club, and then we were meant to have.
[00:05:13] A like music sort of DJing club, but there unfortunately wasn’t enough interest for that. So yeah, and I think it was also coming outta Covid where people were doing like half virtual, half online. So that was definitely a challenge that hopefully the next generation of Girl Scout Gold Awards don’t have to contend with.
[00:05:30] But yeah, so those were the kinds of meetings that we had and we had cookouts like at the beginning and then a final celebration at the end when we were just like, Because I wanted to really make sure that I felt like we were building a community and not just day one, like, well, what do you think about these big issues in our city?
[00:05:44] Like that kind of was more at the end. And we had a lot of really interesting guest speakers. Like we had people talk about mental health skills. We had people talk about the juvenile justice system in North Carolina in general. And that was also like a very good topic to pick because those both affect like all of the participants.
[00:06:04] So, I think those were some of the highlights of what we did, but we did a lot that summer.
[00:06:09] Sheryl: What was your biggest challenge during your project and how did you overcome it?
[00:06:13] Janae: I did touch on this before, but really it was just recruiting people from outside of the program. Cuz within the program people were like, okay, well let me sign up for this just as an easy way to get like a bit more credit.
[00:06:24] And I’m okay with that. Like I want it to be easy. I don’t want it to be like the super difficult thing, like I want it to be easy but fulfilling and something that really does transform you. So. I, at first I was like, oh no, like should we have an application? Should we not? And I was like, you know, like people are willing to come and give their best and like share with the group.
[00:06:42] There’s no need for an application or anything like that. But for me it was trying to explain my idea to other people and say like, okay, well we’re doing this. And people were like, oh, so you’re working with bad kids? And I was like, no, we’re working with kids that may have just. Made the same choices that I’m sure other children have made, but they’re the ones who probably got caught or the people who just for whatever reason were picked.
[00:07:07] And that does not mean that they were necessarily the bad kids or anything like that. I think just explaining the idea in general of like, okay, well we’re just, it’s a conversation club, but it’s also like we’re doing things like it’s social justice, so we’re gonna go out and do volunteer work, but we’re also gonna work on ourselves.
[00:07:23] Like I definitely. Like in hindsight should have been more clear with like the different goals of the program when I was marketing it. Cuz a lot of people were like, okay, so how is this gonna benefit me? So trying to explain that to people. Obviously there have been programs similar to the, you connect Charlotte, but finding a way to express that to other people.
[00:07:44] Cause it’s a little bit different than what’s happened before.
[00:07:47] Sheryl: Who was on your team and how did they support your project?
[00:07:50] Janae: Transforming youth movement and I got a lot of support from them. I also got support from my, actually one of the moms in my troop was, she works in adult like correction system, but she had some insight there that was super helpful.
[00:08:05] She gave me a good bit of guidance, especially in the early stages when I was trying to figure out exactly the format for the program. And then I also had. People from my school and people from my local youth council who collaborated with me on helping to plan meetings and you know, send out all those emails and do all those like design things for posters.
[00:08:25] So I think that was definitely, I. Big during the trainings was like delegate, delegate, delegate. And I think that was definitely something that I still struggled with. Even though I was told to delegate things, I was like, well, I don’t wanna give these people too much work to do, like da da da da. But then when I finally was talking to my friends, I was like, okay, I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed.
[00:08:44] And they’re like, no, like please give us more like we are totally here for you. And I was like, okay, I think it’s time to just like listen and start delegating. So once I did that, that did help a lot. And the last like unofficial, but. Very much instrumental member of my team was my mom, which I know is like such a cliche answer.
[00:09:02] But I remember like when we had our first cookout, I was so stressed. I was like, okay, well I have to make these cupcakes and I have to do this, I have to do that. You have to go buy these. And she’s like, okay, just tell me what I need to do and I’ll be there for you. I’ll do it. So if you’re lucky enough to have parents who like have the space to be involved, I would definitely say lean on them.
[00:09:18] Don’t feel like. Oh, my mom’s helping me with my gold award. Like I’m not really grown up enough. Like if you have support there and they’re willing to give it to you, make sure to use it.
[00:09:27] Sheryl: What is a favorite memory from your project?
[00:09:29] Janae: We had a civic engagement talk, like I was saying, with members of the youth council and that was very exciting because the youth council is something that was important to me.
[00:09:38] It was a way that I was able to talk to like local city leaders and that’s how I learned about the problems of like how just the demographics of the city are so. Just unbalanced. So thought for me was like something that was a very exciting way for me to like push my participants to get involved in the city, like beyond this program, like beyond the summer and just hearing people being able to open up and share about things that really interested them and their own issues and saying, Hey, like you know that there’s many avenues to be engaged in your community.
[00:10:11] Like a lot of us couldn’t vote yet at the time. Like I couldn’t even vote, but it was. Like, Hey, if you wanna, if you’re interested in the problem of gentrification and how a lot of people are becoming homeless, like we can go over here and we can volunteer at this soup kitchen. We can send an email to this person.
[00:10:26] So I think that was the most exciting meeting. Cause I was like, there’s a way that you can channel your energy and your concerns and you have to just sit there with them.
[00:10:34] Sheryl: What is something that you learned about the Gold award process that you didn’t know going in that might be helpful for Future Gold Award Girl Scouts?
[00:10:42] Janae: I think I knew how supportive the team of people who like review like the Golden Word committee would be. Cause I thought they were mostly just like, no, that’s not good enough. And like leave it at that. But they actually like, at least for the Hornets nest council, they really do want you to what, and they do like when they’re asking you questions, it’s not necessarily like they’re trying to poke holes in your argument, but they really are just trying to give you ideas of how to make sure you meet all the requirements.
[00:11:09] And I think my first meeting I was so nervous, but then they actually gave me tips to like help me, you know, execute the program better. And I even got one of my speakers when I was like, still trying to look for the last speaker from a connection through the gold award committee. So things like that just be open to it and if you’re feeling nervous before that meeting, or even if you wanna reach out beforehand, if they have the time, they probably would be willing to just chat with you or make sure that you can reach your goals in a way that’s like, Attainable for you, but also could have the maximum impact possible.
[00:11:42] Sheryl: Well, as a Gold award committee member, I thank you for that because it’s abs. It’s absolutely true. My passion is helping Gold Award Girl Scouts achieve what they wanna achieve. And I’ve seen. Hundreds, probably thousands of gold award projects. So I have lots of experience. Let me share and help you with your project, right?
[00:12:02] Yes, absolutely. The committee in most councils, the committee is there and really wants to support you as much as you need. What other Girl Scout experiences have you had?
[00:12:13] Janae: I’ve been a Girl Scout since first grade. As of right now, I’m doing like a full circle moment where I’m leading a troop in New Haven where I’m studying and I have gained a whole new level of respect for my old troop leaders.
[00:12:27] I did cookies. I’m a, well, I just finished my first year at college, so. You know, that was my first year being cookie mom and like schlepping around and doing inventory and trying to navigate ebu, which is like so confusing for like pizza. So that has been a very fun experience, even though I know I just founded, like, I was complaining.
[00:12:45] I still really love cookie sales. And being able to show my troop, which is mostly, I wanna say second to fourth graders, showing them how to like sell cookies and just having general meetings where we get to talk about like, Whatever’s on their mind. Like we have a very like open format. That’s how my old trip was as well.
[00:13:02] Like of course we did badge work, but it was also just a space where you could just talk about how you’re feeling and you know, have like the leaders sort of like gently like nudge you and be like just imbue you with confidence. Like not in a like love yourself, you’re perfect, but just like in a, hmm.
[00:13:17] Like I’m really proud of you for that. And like those are the little things that stick with you in belgium’s self-esteem. So I really love being able to bond with those girls. Before I, as I said, I was a girl scout since first grade. I used to be so shy. I remember like in meetings and stuff, I would always have my little book under my desk and I would.
[00:13:37] Rarely participate. And then I think as I grew up and as I started like, okay, these people are pretty cool. Like I started interacting with them more. And I would go on the events, I’d go to camp. My favorite thing was archery and like rock climbing. All those things were always my favorite. And I don’t know, even now, whenever I go back home, like I always like text the girls Scout group chat, like, who’s in town?
[00:13:55] We need to hang out. So those are definitely like lifelong bonds, even through Covid. I studied abroad my sophomore year, so I was gone. But even then, like I was always in contact with my Girl Scout friends and they’re really wonderful people.
[00:14:09] Sheryl: My understanding is you are a troop leader and cookie mom.
[00:14:13] You are part of a campus Girl Scouts and sometimes people hear the term Campus Girl Scouts and don’t understand what that means. Can you tell us a little bit about that part of the organization?
[00:14:24] Janae: So Campus Girl Scouts, I think people think it’s like, you know, like Girls Aged is like 19 to like 22 who like still wanna be little Girl Scouts, but I feel like people forget that Girl Scouts really is an organization that grows with you.
[00:14:38] Obviously you have stuff suited to five year olds, but you also have stuff suited towards older people. And I don’t do as much of like the actual programming anymore, but we mostly just go out into the community. We connect with a boys and Girls club who’s already like, wanted to have a Girl Scout program and we just decided to lead it.
[00:14:58] So we work on planning meetings, we plan outings for the girls. We communicate with You know, the local council. So it’s always funny like showing up to meetings and as much of like older people and they’re like, why are you here? And I’m like, oh, I’m also a cheerleader. But they love to see it. They love to see that you know, people are still interested and there is room for us in Girl Scouts beyond when you graduate.
[00:15:21] So that’s pretty much all that we do. We also. Get funding from my school, which is really helpful. Because we were set up like under the community service center called Dwight Hall. So that’s mainly what we do. We were pretty new. They started I think in 20. 19, I wanna say. And then they had a little hiatus and I think when I came, this was their first or second year?
[00:15:47] Their first year completely back. I think last year they were virtual.
[00:15:50] Sheryl: You also mentioned that you lived overseas. Can you tell us about that adventure?
[00:15:55] Janae: My sophomore year of high school, well, actually I applied my freshman year of high school and I was just kind of sitting there and I was like, what am I gonna do like for these next few?
[00:16:04] Next four years ahead of me. So I was just looking at different programs to do and I found this program that would let me study abroad for a whole school year. So I was like, you know what? I’m gonna go do this. So I applied to live Ingo Spain for a full year. It cut, it was cut short because of Covid, so it was supposed to be nine months, but it was only.
[00:16:25] Six, but it was actually a very liberating experience. It was very fun. I don’t know why I did, like, I’m looking back at it, I’m like, I was 15 and just kind of like allowed to just go and just wander. And I remember like between classes, I just go to the bakery and I go to, and here’s all this random stuff that like, I just, I can’t imagine, like right now I’m still on campus because I’m.
[00:16:47] Preparing to go to Brazil in a few weeks, but I think I’m more nervous to do that than I was back then when I was a little sophomore. And I was like, yeah, I guess I’m gonna go, but no worries. I’ll just be back. And I think I did, I did find a troop. They had a mixed gender rou there. I wasn’t able to read to get involved cause it was like a lot of paperwork at extra things like that.
[00:17:06] But I did do, I think one outing with them and that was pretty fun. It was just a, it was in the early days too of being there. So the language barrier was like, Definitely messing things up. I was like, Hey, what are you talking about? And then they’d be like, what are you talking about? But they, I dunno, people were excited.
[00:17:21] It was a smaller town, like it wasn’t very touristy, so people were always excited when they had like you know, an American there. So that did help. I got a little extra clout, I guess for my, for Ray into scouting. What are you going to Brazil for? Brazil. I’m just going to learn Portuguese. I literally have started taking classes yesterday and I have until, June 17th is when classes end, and then we’re gonna go there for the next few weeks after that.
[00:17:48] It’s truly just language learning. I don’t know, I feel like a lot of people were doing very like, high powered internships and like consulting or things like that, but I was like, I’m interested in just traveling. Exploring. So that’s what I’m doing.
[00:18:01] Sheryl: What are you planning on for your future?
[00:18:03] Janae: I’m thinking of comparative literature, so I guess that’s also partially where Portuguese comes in.
[00:18:07] I already speak Spanish like relatively well. I’m never gonna be like, I am the best cause I can always improve. But I really enjoyed studying Spanish literature. And of course I love my English and my other like literature classes. So I was thinking of adding Portuguese and then doing a conflict major, which just, you know, like.
[00:18:27] So I do English, Portuguese, and Spanish as my three languages. And then I’m also interested in nursing because I really like, enjoy bio chemistry, not so much, but I was like, you know what? I’d be able to work through that just to be able to help people. I’m really interested in midwifery. Just the ability to like support someone who’s like growing.
[00:18:48] Cause there’s just not a lot of like medical knowledge about like just being pregnant and like, Giving birth and there’s just so many things that are done just wrong. And I think it’d be really cool if I was able to, you know, pursue my master’s and then hopefully work on my own and have the flexibility of, you know, maybe going to like rural areas where healthcare isn’t as good and there’s not a lot of doctors.
[00:19:08] So very different paths of like, do I wanna become an academic or do I wanna become a nurse or somewhere in my teen? I don’t know. So I have, I think at the end of the day, no matter what I wanna do, I wanna help people. So as long as I can find a way to do that, I’m sure I’ll be happy.
[00:19:23] Sheryl: Well, I’m sure you’ll find your path. It’ll come.
[00:19:26] Janae: Yes.
[00:19:26] Sheryl: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the audience?
[00:19:29] Janae: If you’re even considering doing your gold award I would say go for it. Like really think about it, make sure something you’re passionate about and then you’ll be able to continue it and sustain it. I know some people who like weren’t really sure and I’m like, this is such a good idea, and then they never did it.
[00:19:43] And then you always have a kinda thing in the back of your head like, well, what if I try? Because even if you don’t officially like make it to the end of the process, Of doing your gold and trying to go for your gold award is just so it’s, it shows you a lot about yourself and it helps you engage with the community in like new ways.
[00:20:01] Like I would’ve ever encountered time the partner organization, if I wasn’t really doing research into the. Juvenile justice system in Charlotte. So you can even use your gold award as an excuse to dig deeper into something that you’re already interested in. And like someone can’t be like, oh, what are you doing?
[00:20:18] Like I’m doing my Gold Award. Your unique voice, your unique insight into what your community needs can actually take you very far, and I would say at least go for it. Set up a meeting with your counsel. Reach out to people who’ve done it before and see what you can do. Cause I believe in me.
[00:20:36] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:20:38] Janae: I burn my, I have to burn my marshmallow, like it has to catch fire. I was an evil little girl and I used to like wave it around my sister when it was on. I don’t do that anymore, but I still do like to burn my smores. You know, Graham cracker, chocolate marsh, my little chocolate graham cracker. It’s the way to do it.
[00:20:58] Sheryl: Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us today.
[00:21:01] Janae: Of course. Yes. I’m so honored to be here and to share my story with y’all.
[00:21:05] Sheryl: Make sure to click follow or subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released. Power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:21:14] 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.
[00:21:25] 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.
[00:21:37] Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next time.