[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.
[00:00:14] Sheryl: Welcome to Hearts of Gold. Today we have Anuska with us. Hi Anuska.
[00:00:18] Anuska: Hi.
[00:00:19] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:22] Anuska: My Gold award project was creating a cookbook using recipes, and all of these recipes only use ingredients that people would find at food pantries. So then I dis, I created this cookbook and then I distributed it to 192 food pantries in the Missouri and Illinois region, which was really cool, and I got to really connect.
[00:00:44] All of the different people who were, who use ingredients from these food pantries, but also people who volunteer at food pantries them, those people who run them. So it was just a really cool experience of getting to meet all different kinds of people that I usually don’t interact with on a day-to-day basis.
[00:01:00] Sheryl: What prompted this project for you?
[00:01:03] Anuska: I’ve been volunteering at the Gateway 180 homeless shelter since I was in first grade, so it’s always been a thing, and I’ve seen how when people get a mix of ingredients from food pantries, they don’t really know what to do with them, like, They get a bunch of different ingredients from like peanut butter to pasta, and without knowing what recipes to make, it’s sometimes hard to utilize those recipes.
[00:01:25] So I wanted to target that and I wanted to turn like all these ingredients into meals that they could make and teach them how to do that.
[00:01:34] Sheryl: Your cookbook is beautiful. What went into the production of the cookbook?
[00:01:39] Anuska: I started off with reaching out to basically every single food pantry in the Missouri region, and I reached out to them and I was like, so what ingredients do you guys give to people who come to your food pantry?
[00:01:51] Because I needed to have like a set list of ingredients that I could use in all of my recipes. So I reached out to them and. Like everybody’s list was different, but I found like the main commonalities and I made that into a master list, and I only used those ingredients throughout the whole entire process.
[00:02:10] I then started creating the recipes and altering recipes that were already available on the internet and just making substitutions for ingredients that like some people might not have at food pantries with ones that they would. And then I had all of the recipes tested with my team of Girl Scouts. So every single recipe has been tested.
[00:02:30] Every single recipe has been edited. All of the pictures were made, all of the like wording was all changed up, and then it was ready to put together in a book, and I think it was the editing that took the longest by just like having to align everything the same. So it looks uniformed and it looks like it’s actually a book.
[00:02:50] And then after that I reached out to food pantries and I was like, are you willing to distribute the book? And a lot of them had actually nutrition guidelines. So they weren’t allowed to distribute my book unless I met every single nutrition guideline for the food pantries. And the biggest thing was, was that every single food pantry had their own nutrition guidelines.
[00:03:11] So I had to adhere by all of those, and I had to change up some of. And alter some of the ingredients and the amounts I was using them in just so like the sodium wasn’t too high because I know that there are specific food pantries that just wouldn’t distribute it because of policies that they have. So I think that was a big thing that like it was kind of a roadblock that I had to combat.
[00:03:31] And then after that I just had to like advertise the cookbook and it was pretty smooth sailing after that.
[00:03:37] Sheryl: Who was on your team and how did they help you?
[00:03:39] Anuska: My team was my Gold award mentor who sandy norcidis and I’ve been in contact with her for about four years now. So it’s been a while. I first contacted her when I was starting my project as a freshman in high school and she was actually one of the people I contacted cuz she runs the Wininger Food Pantry or she used to run it.
[00:03:56] And I was like, so what ingredients do you guys get? And in the conversations we were having then she was like, I have been a lifelong girl scout. I am a girl Scout like coach, and I mentor them right now. So I like reached out to her and I was like, oh, would you like, I still need like a leader. Like I still need like a mentor.
[00:04:14] And it was so surprising to me that like she was so willing to help me even though she didn’t know who I was. I was just a freshman in high school who reached out to her over email and she was so willing to help me. So she has been a crucial part of my project. She’s been there with me every step of the way for the last four years with my project, which was really cool.
[00:04:32] And then my team is also composed of like some of my peers and that’s like Girl Scouts and non Girl Scouts. So I have people from my Girl Scout troupe who helped me, edited my recipes, who tested some of them, but then I also had people who were just like my friends at school. And I got, like, there were a lot of recipes.
[00:04:51] There was over 60 of them in the cookbook. So getting every single recipe edited. Did because I was testing all the recipes, but I needed other people to test them too, just to make sure. I just wasn’t being like, oh, these recipes are good because I put so much work into the cookbook. So I had like other people test them.
[00:05:09] So I had some of my school friends, like I gave them a couple recipes each, and I was like, can you test these for me? I had some people from my dad’s workplace and I was like, can you get all of your friends to test like this batch of recipes? Because there were so many of them, and I didn’t want to give people like 20 recipes to test.
[00:05:24] So many, so I gave everybody like a couple, and they all really helped me throughout the whole process.
[00:05:30] Sheryl: What was your biggest challenge during your project and how did you overcome it?
[00:05:34] Anuska: Getting responses from food pantries to start with because I guess like looking back at it now, it makes sense that I was just a random high schooler asking them if they would distribute a random cookbook.
[00:05:45] So like a lot of the food pantries when I initially reached out, they never responded and a lot of them still didn’t. Or if they did, they were like, it’s against our policies to distribute like an outside book to our clients, I guess for liability. So that was my biggest challenge was just trying to get it distributed.
[00:06:02] But I think that after I coded a website, I made flyers and I just did it by the word of mouth. And after like people started seeing the product, like I should’ve sending them the product, and I was like, so this is what it is. You don’t have to say yes. Now you can think it over. After they started seeing the cookbook, they were more like willing to distribute.
[00:06:21] And then a lot of food pantries started reaching out to me because another food pantry in their area had gotten the cookbook and they were like, can we also like distribute it? And I was like, sure. Like, so I think it was just like a really turning point that like I just had to advertise the cookbook better through flyers and a website.
[00:06:39] And I also hosted a lot of cooking demonstrations so I could advertise the cookbook. So like, I guess everybody has the cookbook, but watching someone. Make the recipes or a couple recipes in person is very different than like just reading the cookbook and being like, oh, that sounds cool. So that was a big turning point too, that I hosted a bunch of cooking demonstrations at different food pantries and their clients, and I even hosted cooking demonstrations just with like the food pantry, like staff.
[00:07:08] So they were able to see it and they were able to be like, okay, like this is like a feasible thing for us to distribute. So I think that was my biggest turning point and challenge.
[00:07:18] Sheryl: What did you learn about yourself during your project?
[00:07:20] Anuska: I can do big things because like taking on a project like any gold award project is such a big thing for any high schooler to do, and as a freshman it was so intimidating.
[00:07:32] Like there were periods of time where like, I guess since I started early, I had like the opportunity to like take breaks within my project. So I know that like when school started my sophomore year, there was this solid like four month period where I didn’t do anything. Like there wasn’t. , like a bit of work done on my Gold Award project, but then there was also months like over the summer where I was doing like six or seven hours a day.
[00:07:52] So like it balanced itself out. But I like, there were some times where I was like, no one’s responding to me. Like, I don’t know if this is gonna work. Like, but I think that just the support system that Girl Scouts gives you is so huge. And I know that my mentor specifically, she reached out to me every once in a while and she . Was like, how is it going?
[00:08:10] What’s your progress? And my troop leader did the same thing. So I think it’s just so cool to see the final result and be like, whoa, I did that. Like not thinking that you were gonna do it. Like I know that I never thought that my food pantry would be distributed to 192 food pantries and that it would eventually, like now through my nonprofit organization, that it’s like, It’s continuing and people are making cookbooks in other parts of the world because of my idea.
[00:08:36] I never thought that that would happen because I only thought I was gonna get distributed to like five or six food pantries and that was gonna be my project. But I think just like the overall reach of your community and how much they’re there to support you, really surprised me and has taught me that like if I set my mind something, I can do it and I can provide results for it.
[00:08:55] Sheryl: What did you learn about the Gold Award process itself that would be helpful to others considering earning their gold award?
[00:09:02] Anuska: You need to be passionate about your project. You just can’t find something unlike Google and be like, oh yeah, that sounds cool. Like I wanna do the project. You need to be passionate about it, and it’s so easy to find things that are problems with what you are passionate about because.
[00:09:17] Of how much time and effort you’ve put in. So if there’s like a spore or like community service, or if there’s something that you really like to do, it’s really easy to like introspect your passion and find flaws or things that you can do better. And when you do something like that, like I’ve been working with the Gateway and 80 homeless shelter for forever, so I was really passionate about helping them.
[00:09:36] So it was really easy for me to find motivation to continue my project, even though it was, it took me a couple of years to finish and even when I did find motivation, it was like, oh, like I, like I still went and I still volunteered at the, like at their food pantry in their homeless shelters. I was like, oh, like now I’m reminded of why I’m doing this.
[00:09:53] And like, it’s not just like a project, but it’s like to help these people. So I think the most important thing is to find something that you’re passionate about so that you find motivation and that. A genuine project, like if you find something that you’re genuine in, you’re gonna put your best work forward and it’s gonna help the most amount of people.
[00:10:10] Sheryl: That passion converted into, as you mentioned earlier, a nonprofit. Can you tell us about that?
[00:10:17] Anuska: I have a 5 0 1 nonprofit, young chefs, s t L, and it actually started a little. Like it had like started to found before my Girl Scout school award, but it wasn’t a real organization. So since I was younger, I’ve always like just helped out and I’ve loved to cook.
[00:10:34] So I’ve hosted cooking demonstrations at food pantries and homeless shelters. Before, but I’ve never really targeted, like even if it was at a homeless shelter, I didn’t really look at the ingredients they were getting. It was just a fun way for parents and kids to interact with me and for us just to have a fun day.
[00:10:51] So it’s always been like a thing that I’ve done, but it turned into a 5 0 1 nonprofit and I think like it, like the sh like the vision of it kind of shifted because now I’ve like focused a. On using ingredients that is accessible to them because like while fun events are really cool, it’s not gonna like benefit them in the long term if they aren’t able to recreate these recipes because they don’t just have access to all of these ingredients on a daily basis.
[00:11:19] And the really cool thing about the nonprofit is that it’s spread across the United States and there are a couple of chapters around the world, and it’s not because it’s necessarily me advertising it, like I did advertise it at the beginning a lot, but it’s also just the Girl Scouts is wide reach that people are reaching out to me and they’re like, so how do we get involved?
[00:11:38] How can we help? And I think the coolest thing is, is. There are other cookbook initiatives, like I know we have a chapter in Canada and we have a bunch in India, and the coolest thing is that they’re all making their own cookbooks, but they’re altering their recipes to fit their guidelines because in India or Canada, the ingredients that they get at food pantries are so vastly different from what we get in the United States.
[00:12:01] And also the meals that they are accustomed to are so different just because of what they’re used to and cultural differe. . So it’s so cool to see other countries, or like people in other countries who are Girl Scouts or who aren’t even Girl Scouts, who are just people who wanna make a difference and who wanna help like alter this cookbook and make their own recipes and help others around them in their like, local proximity.
[00:12:26] Sheryl: Your project has really become multicultural. Can you share what you’ve, what you might have learned about different cultures and the way that they do their foods. Can you dive into that a little bit more deeply?
[00:12:37] Anuska: In my cookbook, there is a whole section on ethnic food, so there’s a chapter on that. And I think the biggest thing I learned was that for ethnic food, it’s a little bit harder to make, especially with food pantry ingredients because a lot of ethnic food has.
[00:12:52] Specific, they have specific ingredients that aren’t commonly found, at least here in the United States, or if they are commonly found, you don’t find them at food pantries very often, but in places like India, like all of their food is gonna be culturally different from the United States. So they’re like, most of their cookbook is Indian food with their ethnic food being American food.
[00:13:12] So it’s just like the diversity in that. . But I think the biggest thing that I learned was how similar but different the food is and how you’re able to manipulate it using American food. So like while it’s not gonna be the same, you can replace like some constant like vegetables. Like I know that like.
[00:13:31] In like certain Asian cultures, they’re like specific vegetables that you use, but you aren’t gonna find those unless you go to like the Asian market. But for people who get ingredients for food pantries, that just isn’t a viable option all the time. And sometimes it’s never a viable option. So when you’re able to replace ingredients with ingredients that are similar enough, It’s really cool because then you’re able to give people who maybe come from those cultural backgrounds, you’re able to give them like not the exact experience of eating their cultural food, but such a similar experience to help ’em connect with their roots, which they might have not been able to do in the past because they just hadn’t thought about making those substitutions or using so diverse ingredients to make something that like connected to their homeland.
[00:14:12] Sheryl: What other Girl Scout experiences have you? .
[00:14:14] Anuska: A really big thing through the Girl Scouts that I’ve done is First Robotics. So the Girl Scout actually sponsors robotics teams every year and I have done robotics since the eighth grade and I’m still in it. So it’s been a thing I’ve done for the last five years and I think it’s really showed me to branch out and like meet new people and like learn new things.
[00:14:34] So through robotics I learned how to code. I learned how to build a robot. I learned how to code a website, conduct outreach. We volunteer all the time. In fact, like today we’re gonna go volunteer at an assisted living home after this. So like I’ve gotten to meet new people, I’ve gotten to give back to my community, and I’ve gotten to like gain new skillsets that I wouldn’t have been able to do without the Girl Scouts because I, I don’t think I would’ve ever joined a robotics team in high school if it wasn’t something I joined because, oh, there was like my Girl Scouts troop was doing it and I was like, oh, that’s so cool.
[00:15:05] Like I’ll try it out. And now it’s like something I do every single week and it’s so cool. So I think the Girl Scouts just gives you opportunities. Like they like email, like your coaches and they put them on the internet and they’re like, we want girls to get involved in stem. We want girls to do this.
[00:15:18] And they give you the funding, they give you the resources, they give you the support to do it. And I think that is so cool about the Girl Scout community.
[00:15:25] Sheryl: What is in your future?
[00:15:27] Anuska: I’ll be going off to college next year. I’m not sure where I’ll be going. So that’s still up in the air with decisions coming out, and I’m hoping to do an undergrad in environmental studies and public policy and then eventually go to law school on the environmental policymaker track.
[00:15:46] I think it would be so cool if I could continue looking at food insecurity in my community, but more from like an environmental policy standpoint and enacting. public policies that help like food pantries and like donating, like excess food waste by incentivizing like restaurants and subsidizing like restaurants and even grocery stores to donate their food.
[00:16:08] So I think that that would be really fun for my future.
[00:16:11] Sheryl: Is there anything else that you’d like to share with the audience?
[00:16:14] Anuska: Just ask for help because throughout the whole entire Girl Scouts process, like there were parts where I was stuck and I was like, I don’t really know what to do. And if I just asked my Girl Scout community, or I sent email to like our director of like higher awards, she, she was like, okay, here are some contacts that can help you.
[00:16:30] Here are people who can help you. And I think that’s the biggest thing because like even for my goals award mentor, I just reach out to. About something else. And I was like, oh, would you be willing to be my Girl Scout Gold Award mentor? And she was like, yeah. So I think that was the most surprising thing to me, especially as a high school freshman, that I was like, all of these people, they don’t know me, but they’re willing to put in so much time and they’re willing to help me.
[00:16:51] Like just out of the kindness of their heart. And that was the coolest thing for me. And I’m really hoping that I’m able to do the same for other Girl Scouts. So like I can keep the cycle going and I can help other girl Scouts, like other girl Scouts have helped me.
[00:17:04] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:17:05] Anuska: Instead of using Hershey’s, I really like using Reese’s because I really like peanut butter and I’m a huge peanut butter fanatic, so I think that’s like, I use peanut butter and then I use the marshmallows and the two graham crackers as useful.
[00:17:17] Thanks for joining us today.
[00:17:19] Thank you for having me.
[00:17:20] Sheryl: Make sure to click follow or subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released. And make sure to power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:17:33] Walter: The Hearts of Gold Podcast is brought to you by the Grow and Share Network, produced by Off the Walter Media Productions.
[00:17:40] 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 growandshare@outlook.com.
[00:17:51] 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.