[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 Sarah with us. Hi, Sarah.
[00:00:15] Sarah: Hello.
[00:00:16] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:21] Sarah: My Gold Award project was focusing on representation in children’s literature.
[00:00:26] So, in order to address this, I decided to write a children’s book that interviewed girls from different areas of the world and just kind of showed how everyone has different lives, but we can only brought together. So, I would interview girls from about 6 different countries. And I put all of these interview questions into a book and I got illustrations from one of my friends and we made this book.
[00:00:51] Sheryl: Who were the girls that you interviewed for your book?
[00:00:56] Sarah: So there is eight of them total because there was multiple from one country and I would get in touch with them through friends or neighbors. And we would meet over Zoom or over the phone, and if I needed to, like, have a translator with me, I would ask some questions and get to know them.
[00:01:17] And all of what you learn about them in the book is actually them.
[00:01:23] Sheryl: Clearly, you needed connections in order to meet these other girls. Who was on your team, and how did they help you?
[00:01:31] Sarah: On my team, I would talk to my friends who I knew had family in other countries or used to live in another country and maybe have friends there who would be willing.
[00:01:40] And so it was kind of a lot of asking around, seeing who would be willing to help in this project. And that’s how I found my interviewees.
[00:01:49] Sheryl: What surprised you when you were doing the interviews most?
[00:01:53] Sarah: I guess how much I have in common with some of the girls. It’s just really cool to see how we live so far apart but we have the same hobbies.
[00:02:02] That was really cool to learn.
[00:02:04] Sheryl: How did you find your illustrator and what was that relationship like?
[00:02:08] Sarah: My illustrator is one of my really close friends, and she’s also in my girls capture from East Georgia, and she’s really great at art. She actually also illustrated a book for my mom, who’s also an author.
[00:02:24] And so I knew she was, she had that talent and so I really wanted her to help me with that.
[00:02:29] Sheryl: What was your biggest challenge during your project and how did you overcome it?
[00:02:34] Sarah: Time. I got on a little bit of a time crunch at the end. And, but I just made a schedule with what I had left and I stuck to it. Yeah, we’re definitely just say overcoming that time crash near the end.
[00:02:50] Sheryl: What did you learn about time management that might be helpful to others who are struggling with the same issue?
[00:02:56] Sarah: It’s important when you make a schedule just to stick to it as early on as you can. Obviously like things will come up, you’ll have obstacles, but you can always just regroup and recollect yourself and just kind of focus on the project as a whole and what you need to get done.
[00:03:12] Sheryl: What else did you learn about yourself during this project?
[00:03:16] Sarah: I learned that I’m good at talking to people. It was, that was a really fun thing to learn. I was really nervous going into every interview, but then it just turned into a conversation and I didn’t really know I was capable of that for this project.
[00:03:32] Sheryl: You submitted your proposal your freshman year and you worked on this project all the way through your senior year. Why did your project end up using all four years?
[00:03:42] Sarah: Most of the 1st, and a little bit of my sophomore year high school was mainly trying to find people who would be willing to do the interview, which kind of took a big chunk of time and near junior year was when I really got started on the actual interview process.
[00:04:03] And coming up with ideas for the book, and then when it hit senior year, I was like, oh, we got to go, like, we’re now on time. So I just kind of collected everything I had and put it into the book. But, yeah, it was definitely spun out just because of, I guess, the scale of my project, finding all those different people and having to organize different times that work with the people I was interviewing people who maybe needed to translate with me.
[00:04:34] Just all of that kind of took up a lot of time.
[00:04:37] Sheryl: Your book is on Amazon and we’ll have the link in the show notes. Can you share the process that you had for creating the book and working with to get it on Amazon?
[00:04:48] Sarah: My rough, rough draft of the book was just in a spiral notebook. I had all of my, my illustrator had all the pictures done.
[00:04:57] And so I had those in order on a separate document, and then I would just go in in this notebook and I would draw, like, a really bad sketch of what the illustration actually was. And then the words I wanted to put where I wanted to put them. And so I have all of that in one notebook, and then me and my mom worked together to actually build the book online and then we sent it into Amazon to be published, and it took about 24 hours, and then it was up and going, and we got to order the first copy.
[00:05:29] Sheryl: What was it like when you first saw that book and held it in your hands?
[00:05:33] Sarah: It was kind of like a big sigh of relief, I would say. I was Mainly focused wherever we first got the copy, going through and making sure there is no like, selling errors or anything that I missed. But like holding it was really surreal and exciting because it was like, well, this is four years of work and it’s just right here in my hands.
[00:05:54] Sheryl: You’ve also earned your silver award. Can you tell us about your silver award project?
[00:05:59] Sarah: So I earned my silver award in eighth grade, I believe. I did it focusing on water conservation and preventing water pollution. And my project was a presentation that I made for my grade level in school and to measure the impact by presentation.
[00:06:20] I made these worksheets that were assigned by all the science teachers and all the students. We fill them out. So I could see what they learned and the presentation is.
[00:06:31] Sheryl: What are you planning for your future?
[00:06:34] Sarah: Right now I’m at Exeter State University and I’m studying English and German. And I’m hoping to either go into publishing or into teaching.
[00:06:44] Sheryl: Are there other Girl Scout memories that you’d like to share?
[00:06:47] Sarah: I’ve been with the same group since second grade. So all the way through high school. They’ve all been my best friends. We had a really nice ceremony for whenever we were graduating and finishing Girl Scouts and it was at one of our favorite camps and we all got to like walk across the wall bridge one last time and we all shared our favorite memories from Girl Scouts and that’s probably when I think of Girl Scouts, I always think of that because it was a really nice moment.
[00:07:16] Sheryl: And what was your favorite memory?
[00:07:18] Sarah: We got to backpack at Enchanted Rock and that was really cool. We woke up at like 3 a. m. and we watched a New Year’s shower. And it was just a really fun trip overall.
[00:07:29] Sheryl: What else would you like to share with the audience?
[00:07:32] Sarah: If you’re considering doing your Gold Award project, and it’s like you’re not sure about it, I encourage just Trying to come up with something and going for it and start early.
[00:07:43] If you can, that always really helps, but it’s a really rewarding process and it’s something really fun to look back on. And you’ll grow a lot as a person.
[00:07:54] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:07:56] Sarah: Well, I’ll take my marshmallow and I like. the marshmallow to be a little burnt for my swords. So I roast my marshmallow and then just use the graham cracker and the chocolate.
[00:08:09] I put a lot of chocolate on mine.
[00:08:11] Sheryl: The chocolate’s the best part.
[00:08:13] Sarah: It’s the best part.
[00:08:15] Sheryl: Well, thanks for joining us today.
[00:08:18] Sarah: Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me.
[00:08:20] Sheryl: Make sure to click follow or subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released. Power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:08:30] Walter: Thank you for listening.
[00:08:31] 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.
[00:08:53] Thanks again for listening, and we’ll see you next time.