[00:00:00] Sheryl: Today’s topic will touch on the sensitive issue of abuse. This may be an episode that you just want to skip.
[00:00:12] Walter: The Hearts of Gold podcast is brought to you by the Grow and Share Network, produced by Off the Walter Media.
[00:00:20] Sheryl: Welcome to Hearts of Gold. Today we have Elizabeth with us. Hi, Elizabeth.
[00:00:25] Elizabeth: Hi.
[00:00:26] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:30] Elizabeth: I am now a freshman in college and I started my gold award around my junior year of high school.
[00:00:40] That’s when it really started to get rolling. So it took a full two years for me to be able to receive my gold award. What my gold award is, it’s called Wisdom Wings. And its main goal was to support survivors of sexual abuse. And what I did was I put care packages together for sexual abuse victims, and I put them in police stations.
[00:01:05] And to be able to continue this project and keep it ongoing, like, a gold award is supposed to be sustainable. So I wrote a children’s book called Lee Learns a Lesson. Which is available on Amazon. So it can be bought all over the country and any country and any profits that I get from that book goes right back towards making care packages.
[00:01:29] So that way I can keep replenishing police stations with them. I can keep expanding my project, which I am so grateful that I’ve been able to do. This year as a freshman and now aging out of Girl Scouts, and I’m a volunteer, an adult volunteer. So I’ve now gotten into police stations on college campuses.
[00:01:51] So yeah, that’s a little bit of a gist of everything.
[00:01:55] Sheryl: And we will have a link to your book in the show notes. This is a personal topic for you. Are you willing to share how, what your personal connection is to your subject?
[00:02:06] Elizabeth: Yeah, of course. So I have my own story from when I was abused when I was a kid. I was abused from about the ages of three till about seven by a family friend.
[00:02:20] And I, it took me a really long time to be able to share my story. So it was, you know, February of 2021 when I finally was able to tell my parents about what happened to me as a kid. And then in March of 2021, a month after I told my parents, I decided to go to the police station. I wasn’t expecting anything to really come out of it because It was so far down the line when I did report my case.
[00:02:51] But I just wanted the records to be there about what happened. And in case he did anything to anybody else, I wanted that to be on the record. So that way I would be there to be able to say, like, me too and support the other person. And when I started coming out more with my story, I realized how many other people were able to relate to me that were also abused as kids.
[00:03:19] I had most of my friends were able to relate to me about a family friend or a neighbor or somebody in their life that abused them as a kid, but they just didn’t know. They didn’t understand what was happening to them, so that’s why I chose to write the children’s book to teach kids about consent and boundaries and what to do if somebody crosses those boundaries.
[00:03:42] So, in the book, I use something as simple as a hug, and it’s do you want a hug, do you not want a hug, and what does somebody do if they cross that boundary of you wanting that hug or not? And then regarding the care packages, I realized how difficult it was to report a case. and just the different steps that I didn’t know what to take after I decided to report my case.
[00:04:06] So the care packages consist of little stress toys to fidget with in their hands, a journal and pen if they want to write down any thoughts, and then some informational pamphlets if they want an advocate, next steps they could take, stuff like that. I wanted to put resources in there that I felt like I could have used when I was trying to report my case.
[00:04:30] Sheryl: What sort of feedback have you received from your project, either from the police officers that you’ve worked with, or people who maybe have read your book?
[00:04:40] Elizabeth: I have received a lot of positive feedback and so much support from people, people in my own life, people on social media, people just commenting on my book like in the Amazon reviews, all positive things.
[00:04:57] And I’ve even had people reach out that have gotten a care package telling me how much that it helped them through their reporting process. And as sad as it is when, cause I, if I have like the wisdom wings account and I see a random follow from someone from somewhere, I can kind of assume things or things like that or if somebody reaches out or if somebody makes a certain comment on a post that I make with my project, which it’s sad to see.
[00:05:27] And I, I wish that this isn’t a topic that had to be addressed, but it does, it does happen. And I just want all those people to know, like, how supported they are and when they receive a package, my goal was for them to know that somebody cares and somebody supports them and somebody believes them.
[00:05:49] That’s the main thing, that somebody believes them when they receive the package.
[00:05:54] Sheryl: What was your biggest challenge during your project and how did you overcome it?
[00:05:58] Elizabeth: Just getting the word out, trying to get in contact with all the people from all the different stations. That was, that was hard. Just trying to arrange schedules.
[00:06:09] I feel like that can always be a challenge. But with my book, the biggest challenge for me, it took me a year to write my book. And I found writing the kid’s book more difficult than I would just do. Cause I love writing a kid’s book was more difficult because I was trying to reword things to shift my headspace of like how I’m interpreting something as someone who’s an elementary school kid.
[00:06:39] So it’s just the different audience. I had such a hard time writing. To that audience. So that’s why that was a big struggle. Just trying to change that wording of something that I’m so used to writing.
[00:06:53] Sheryl: Can you tell us about the partnership with your illustrator?
[00:06:57] Elizabeth: My illustrator for my book, her name is Holly Perta.
[00:07:00] She is another Girl Scout here in my council, and her and I have been close ever since we were little. I’ve known her for the longest time, and I knew that she had a passion for drawing. So, I thought, Reaching out to her would be one of something special, something special to me and something I know she loved to do.
[00:07:23] And you can always reach out to your sister scouts is something that I’ve learned through Girl Scouts that everybody is there to support each other. And if she reached out to me with her gold award, I would obviously help. So I knew reaching out to her, that would be. The best choice. And she was amazing.
[00:07:44] It was so much fun working with her.
[00:07:46] Sheryl: Who else was on your team and how did they, and how did they help you?
[00:07:50] Elizabeth: When I was making the care packages, I wanted to get it through Orange County in New York first, that’s where I live. And. I found this one organization, Orange County Mental Health Organization, and they were able to help me send out mass, like mass emails to all the police stations in the county, help me pick out what exactly they think I should put in the care packages to make it appropriate for all ages, whether it’s a kid that receives the package or an adult.
[00:08:25] So they were a huge help throughout the whole process. Do you have a favorite memory from your project? I started getting into public speaking through my project. So I, so okay, a little off topic with this, but I had knee surgery right when my book came out last year in March. So March of 2023. And it was my first day going out and about.
[00:08:52] I was on my crutches. I had my big knee brace and I was going to do my first ever. Speech in front of everyone sharing my story sharing my project and it was just sharing my story was so empowering and I had so much positive feedback from that. That same day when I came home. So right when I got home from the speech, I got a package in the mail and it was my first physical copy of my book that I was able to hold in my hands.
[00:09:25] So that is probably my favorite day ever of my project. My first, my first speech and being able to hold a copy of my book in my hands. That was the best day, probably.
[00:09:37] Sheryl: Publishing a book is a unique experience. If there’s another Girl Scout that’s considering doing that as a part of her project, what suggestions do you have for them?
[00:09:48] Elizabeth: Write down whatever thoughts you have, write down if you want to start in the middle of, if you want to start at the end or the beginning, wherever, wherever you start is a start, just get the words down on the paper and it will all flow from there. Like I said, it took me a year. It’s not a short process.
[00:10:08] But it is so rewarding to be able to hold that book in your hand and say that I wrote this. But it’s just start wherever you want and it’ll all go from there.
[00:10:21] Sheryl: What did you learn about the Gold Award process itself that might be helpful to other Girl Scouts?
[00:10:27] Elizabeth: One of the things that I was thinking about going into it was the time with it, the 80 hours.
[00:10:36] And I was like, how am I going to get 80 hours? Like that seems so long, but I actually ended up spending 200 plus hours recorded on this project. So that was something that was a big worry of mine going into it. But it really, it really just all adds up. And if it’s something that you feel so passionate about, then the time’s just going to fly by while you’re working on it and you’re really going to learn to love it.
[00:11:06] And it’s not like, it’s going to be like a chore or something like that. Like you should really love what you’re doing and it should make you feel happy and fulfilled.
[00:11:17] Sheryl: What did you learn about yourself and What skills did you increase during the project?
[00:11:23] Elizabeth: I’ve been saying this for so long that my gold award has changed me so much as a person for the better.
[00:11:32] And I’ve just, I really feel like I found like a piece of myself in my gold award project because I was able to relate to it so much with my Story. That’s how I, that’s how I started my project was because of what happened to me when I was younger. I found my love for public speaking. And when I went to college, I spoke as the keynote speaker or take back the night.
[00:11:59] And through that, I found a club that I’m now the vice president of. And then I’ve also done public speaking at other colleges. And then I’ve also found a love for writing. I’m currently working on my other kids books and the next one that’s coming out, I already have the name of it and I’m in the works for it.
[00:12:21] It’s called Always in Granny’s Heart. And it’s going to teach kids about having a loved one with dementia. So through my project, I’ve just really found a passion for writing books, kind of addressing difficult topics for kids, like the consent and boundaries and learning about dementia and things like that.
[00:12:40] So this project has really just helped me discover so many passions that I have and really just helped me find myself. So I’m really grateful for that.
[00:12:51] Sheryl: What other Girl Scout memories do you have to share?
[00:12:54] Elizabeth: Probably one of my favorite memories. It does involve public speaking again, but I was in middle school and I, I was a Juliet at the time.
[00:13:06] And my mom got, she saw some posts about this. It was to go see Wicked on Broadway, but you could submit an essay beforehand to go read on stage. About a community service project that you’ve done. So I submitted what at the time I like just completed my bronze award. So I submitted what I did for my bronze award and just talked about it a little bit and they chose 5 people and I was 1 of the ones chosen.
[00:13:34] So I got to go beforehand. I got to meet the whole cast of wicked at the time and then go up on stage at the Gershwin theater. As. I think I was in fifth grade. So as a fifth grader going up on the stage, like in Gershwin Theater, speaking in front of about a thousand people was an incredible experience that I will remember forever.
[00:13:59] And that was, that was probably my favorite. That was probably my favorite thing. Yeah.
[00:14:04] Sheryl: That’s so cool.
[00:14:05] Elizabeth: Yeah. It’s kind of one of those like fun fact things where you throw in with like two truths and a lie. It’s like I spoke on stage at the Gershwin Theater. It gets everyone every time.
[00:14:17] Sheryl: You mentioned your bronze award.
[00:14:18] What was your bronze award and maybe your silver award?
[00:14:22] Elizabeth: For my bronze award, I was a Juliet at the time. So it was just me and the troop. So I know when girls are in like younger with bigger troops, sometimes with bronze and silver, they do it with the whole group. But this one was individually and I had a love for animals.
[00:14:39] I still do. I love animals so much. But I wanted to do something involving the animal shelter. So what I did was I sewed cat beds. I believe it was about 20 to 30 cat beds that I made. And I donated them to the animal shelter along with some dog food. I had a lot of cookie money that I had in my account because I think the year before my bronze award or the same year I sold 2033 boxes of cookies.
[00:15:10] So I had a lot of funds from that, that I was able to put into my bronze award. And then for my silver award, I just finished my Breathe journey with two other girls that joined my troop that year, and we wanted to do something involving the environment and plants. So we did some research on what plants would be best to cut babies from and kind of just reproduce.
[00:15:39] And, like, massive amounts. So we got a spider plant. We got it from one of our local farms. And we got about 150 babies from that spider plant. And we put them in every classroom in the middle school in my town and one of the other private schools that the girls was at.
[00:15:59] Sheryl: That’s super fun, too.
[00:16:01] Elizabeth: It was a lot of fun.
[00:16:02] Both are really fun projects that I loved.
[00:16:05] Sheryl: Oh, I love hearing about unique projects and I’ve never heard the spider plant one. That’s good.
[00:16:10] Elizabeth: So originally I wanted to start my gold award in my freshman year of, and that was in 2019 to 2020. So right when COVID started to happen, I, I wanted to start my project.
[00:16:24] In June of 2020. So at this point, I didn’t share my story. I was more focused on my grandmother. She had dementia and she she passed away in March of 2020, but I saw when she was in the hospitals, how many therapy dogs that came in. And visited her and it would just get the biggest smile on her face.
[00:16:48] Even if she only remembered it for five minutes after the dog left, she, she was smiling for those five minutes. She was the happiest woman ever. So in June of 2020, I got a Golder Retriever puppy, a little coven puppy. And I wanted to start my project. I. Put in all the paperwork for it. It was called retrieving a smile.
[00:17:11] I was going to train my dog to be a therapy dog and take her into nursing homes and hospitals, but the timing just didn’t work out with it. So I had to change my project. And she’s also very stubborn. So it was really hard to train her. She’s still, she is so sweet with me and she behaves very well with me when I’m training her, but she just doesn’t, she doesn’t very behave very well with my parents.
[00:17:39] So when I left for college, they were having a hard time with that, but she’s a sweetheart. We’re hoping one day to train her to be a therapy dog and be able to Do the project that I originally was going to do and take her into those hospitals and nursing homes. But I want to let any girl that’s working on their gold award know that it’s okay to change your mind.
[00:18:04] And sometimes things are not going to work out how you, how you plan them to be. So, sometimes you just got to reroute and take another approach could be a completely different project could be the same, but just in a different way. Okay.
[00:18:18] So, yeah, I just wanted to add that in there.
[00:18:21] Sheryl: Talking about advice, you mentioned you sold a couple of thousand boxes of cookies, which is a lot.
[00:18:28] Do you, do you remember any of your sales tips from that fourth grader that sold all those cookies?
[00:18:33] Elizabeth: I was really motivated because I wanted to get that free week at Girl Scout Camp, Sleepaway Camp which I did get and it was such a fun week. I loved it. I went to Rock Hill Camp but what I did was to be able to get people to come to my cookie booths and stuff like that.
[00:18:53] I would just like kind of making the table very presentable. That was one thing that was really important to me. My dad would come and help me cause I was Juliet at the time. Like I said, so my dad would come and help me and he would just place a box. He would place like tagalongs, Samoas, and like what the it was Savannah smiles at the time.
[00:19:15] So the yellow box and I’m like, no, no, no, it has to be in rainbow order. And I was like, that’s just more appealing to the eyes. Like I was so picky about. how I wanted the booth to look. And I even made like a little, a little booth out of pipe cleaners. So it had that, what’s the thing called over canopy.
[00:19:35] Yeah. So it had that and it was green. And then I had Snoopy there. So, you know, my dad disappeared and then Snoopy showed up. So that got a bunch of people to come over. Another thing I did was I had drive through cookie booths. So, just kind of back in a parking lot, so safe, not near the road. And sometimes people just did not want to get out of their cars.
[00:20:01] So, or if it was raining, they wouldn’t want to get out of their cars. And it’s just so convenient to drive through. So that was one of the other techniques that I used.
[00:20:12] Sheryl: Yeah. So you can say you did drive through cookie boost before they were a thing after the pandemic. Tell us where you are now and what’s in your future?
[00:20:19] Elizabeth: Right now, I’m still working on my Gold Award and expanding it. I have officially received my Gold Award, but obviously that doesn’t mean that it stops. It’s something that I found such a passion for and I love doing. I love helping people and supporting survivors of sexual abuse. And I also love writing and sharing my book.
[00:20:46] One of the more recent things that I did I officially did it after I received my gold award was I signed my book sign language. To be able to read it to kids that are hearing impaired. So just adding things to my project, I’ve. And just new ideas throwing in like, I was not expecting to expand it to college campuses and.
[00:21:09] A couple weeks ago, right before I left Cortland, I had the volleyball team come and help me. We made almost 100 care packages that we’re going to distribute to campuses in the area. And I’m just really grateful that my project has been able to continue to grow because of the generous donations that I’ve received and people continuing to buy my book.
[00:21:30] The funds just keep coming in for to be able to replenish this project and keep it expanding. So I’m really excited to see. How far this project can go it expanding more now, I have realized that I do need help. So, because I was so used to sitting on my bedroom floor, making the packages. It’s taken me hours at a time, putting together those packages, which is how those 200 like plus hours added up.
[00:21:58] But just being able to say like, yes, I do need help. Was really difficult at first. Cause Just wanting to know what’s going on with everything. But I’ve been grateful to have a really commutative or like people like communicating well with me at Cortland with any contacts that they get with the schools nearby and stuff like that.
[00:22:22] But yeah.
[00:22:24] Sheryl: What else would you like to share with the audience?
[00:22:27] Elizabeth: To any girls starting their Gold Award, I would say, just, anything that you’re interested in, just write it down. Like, it sounds so simple, just writing down your thoughts, but it can help so much. And, cause I had so many thoughts with what I wanted to do with my Gold Award, as it started from a puppy all the way to writing a book.
[00:22:50] So just writing down your thoughts, kind of maybe like what the process would be like, and just making sure that it’s something that you’re passionate about or something you see that you could have a passion and to be able to make it such a fun process and such a learning. It’s such like a learning experience because I’ve learned so much from my Gold Award that I’m so happy to be able to have, like, had the experiences with it.
[00:23:20] But just start by writing down and just see where it takes you from there.
[00:23:27] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:23:29] Elizabeth: So, okay, I used to be crazy, I think, and I would just light them on fire and burn them. But now I like to take my time and make them a nice toasty golden. That’s my favorite. Yes. I used to be very impatient and would just burn it.
[00:23:48] Sheryl: Well thank you so much for joining us and telling your story today. Of course. Make sure to click follow and subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released. Power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:24:04] 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 growandshareatoutlook. com.
[00:24:14] 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/SherylM.Robinson. Thanks again for listening, and we’ll see you next time.