[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 Mikenna with us. Hi, Mikenna.
[00:00:16] Mikenna: Hi.
[00:00:17] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:20] Mikenna: Sure. So my name is Mikenna and I created what’s called the Silver Stories Podcast.
[00:00:26] It was originally created to be a podcast sharing system that I have recorded the stories of seniors in my community who have shared their authentic real stories. And it was put into a podcast series on YouTube that was shared obviously with whatever communities. Around and just people on the internet can find it.
[00:00:47] And then along with my project, I also created a website so that their stories, maybe some of their pictures could be included on that website. And then I found it really important that the people that I recorded the amazing seniors that I got to meet also had their own copy of their story. So I made each of them little booklets.
[00:01:06] So I, in turn, I mean, I actually created seven, I had seven interviews for the gold award project.
[00:01:12] Sheryl: How did you choose the seniors that you interviewed?
[00:01:15] Mikenna: I have been visiting a nursing home literally since I was born. My great grandmother was at a nursing home and after, even after she passed away, my family just thought it was important that I go and visit people who are older than me and just understand how valuable older generations are.
[00:01:32] And so I’ve been visiting that nursing home since forever and almost every week. And so I just came to really get to know some of the people there and reached out and said, Hey, would you be willing to share your story? And it actually went a lot farther than that. Then I, I didn’t even imagine it would go that far.
[00:01:50] I first started with the people at this particular nursing home, the, the, as I call them, my friends. I got to know them they had their stories recorded. They were super excited. And then actually another nursing home in the area said, Hey, like, we have some people over here who would love that. So I started to reach out to a couple of them and what’s great was I started to get the variety of people.
[00:02:13] different seniors of different stories from a Holocaust survivor to a World War II veteran to even just the average Joe on the street of, Hey, I, I have a voice. I like to sing. I like to dance. I have, you know, a couple of jokes of mine, things like that.
[00:02:28] Sheryl: What prompted you to choose podcasting as your platform for sharing the stories?
[00:02:32] Mikenna: So one of the problems or challenges I came across was that some seniors felt that they, they were a little unsure of doing a video. And I actually am not very tech savvy. I don’t have a lot of social media platforms. So I thought, Hey, if they were able to sit down with me and I could kind of feed them questions and they were able to tell their authentic real story and have their voice recorded, I think that’s amazing.
[00:02:59] My grandmother. Actually has she didn’t have, obviously they didn’t have podcasts back then, but she has a recording of her mom. And her mom was just telling her a simple bedtime story, but I would have never been able to hear her say any of that and hear her real voice because I was really young when she passed away.
[00:03:18] So I thought. If, if people were able to hear their real voice and maybe if there’s a picture in there that I had included in the website, that’s great. But to really feel a connection to someone’s voice, I think is very key. So to have just different people talking that you would have never imagined are even out there in the world.
[00:03:37] I think it’s just really powerful.
[00:03:39] Sheryl: What did you learn about podcasting during your project?
[00:03:43] Mikenna: Well, I learned it’s not as simple as you’d first expect as you probably know there’s a lot of trial and error, but I also realized that it can be really fun and really informal. When I was interviewing the people, I didn’t make it seem like, oh, it’s really, you know, challenging or it’s really scary and you should be nervous and it’s a big deal.
[00:04:04] I just said, hey, the first way I started off. I introduced myself, obviously, and then I said, Hey, you know, this is to get to know you. You be you, you be authentic, you be yourself, and just have fun with it. And so soon they started to forget that there was even a microphone there and just talk. This is my life.
[00:04:22] This is who I am. This is, this is what I like to do. Do you have a favorite story from your project? One of the things that I wanted to add was I went beyond just the gold award, which I think is something that maybe some girls can relate to the, the project really hit home for me. And I continued it even after I submitted everything and he actually got the gold award.
[00:04:45] But one of the. So after I connected with this other nursing home that I hadn’t gone to previously they had said, would you be willing to try something new? And I said, sure. What, what are you looking at? And they said, well, we have somebody who has difficulty talking and they’re a little shy and they have a couple of memory problems.
[00:05:05] But we have their family with them. And we were wondering if you could have the person that the resident, the interviewee sit down and with their family, talk about what they did in their life. And so this happened to be a Holocaust survivor. And so I sat down with the family and it’s the, if you listen to the podcast, it’s the son telling the story about how his mom was a Holocaust survivor, had rescued a boy when she was in an encampment Just all different stories about how she was saving other people, even though she was one of the victims of the Holocaust and how she just continued to be brave and loving, even after the war, even after all the terrible things had happened to her.
[00:05:48] And so that really. I think inspired me. And I was like, Paul, like, I didn’t even know that there was somebody like you out in the world. You forget that people have stories beyond your little tiny home and the things that you’re used to. And so after I had heard her story, I actually read a book. It is like for a middle grade setting, but I’d read this book.
[00:06:10] And this girl Clara Sarnowski, she is an author, but she’s a teen author. And she had changed the law in Oregon, relating to Holocaust survivors, met a Holocaust survivor. So I reached out to her and was able to get her reaction as, you know, a younger person, just like me. And she had gone to see a Holocaust survivor and was trying to bring back his remembrance of how he lived and.
[00:06:35] Tell people about his story. So it was really cool that not only I got to meet somebody who was from the Holocaust and got to tell this story, but now I met somebody in my generation who I was impacted by what they were saying. And I think that she also said that she was impacted by. So it was a really cool moment where everybody from all generations, all different walks of life, living in totally different states, totally different lives, just connected in that moment.
[00:07:03] So that has, that’s one of the biggest stories that have really hit hard for me.
[00:07:07] Sheryl: What was one of your biggest challenges and how did you overcome it?
[00:07:10] Mikenna: Realizing how much goes into like podcasting, like you were kind of saying that it’s, it’s not just, here’s a microphone, go and talk. There’s a lot of legality behind things and getting consent forms.
[00:07:24] And so I had to learn about like the whole power of attorney and things like that. And just reaching out to different people. And again, I. Even though I had connections at this, this nursing home that I’ve been going to since forever, I also wanted to reach out to different communities and advertise in different ways and really spread what I learned from the project beyond just, oh, I took something away from this person’s story.
[00:07:49] So I think that was kind of a challenge of realizing how big the world is and How to really navigate how you’re going to make an impact. It’s not as easy as said and done. It’s, it’s a lot more than that. And I think what’s cool about the gold award that I mean, admittedly, and I think a lot of other girls can relate to this.
[00:08:08] I was one of the people who got like rejected for the proposal several times because I wasn’t clear enough. And I realized then when I was working on the project. Oh, wait, it’s not just as simple as sending an email to this person. It’s not just as simple as walking into this person’s room and talking to them.
[00:08:23] So that was a little bit of a challenge, but I think in the end it was very worth it.
[00:08:27] Sheryl: Can you talk a little bit more about the changes that you had to make to your proposal in order to get it approved?
[00:08:34] Mikenna: For one of them, I know I was talking about making the booklets. And so with the gold award, there are several aspects of like, how are you going to raise money to do all this?
[00:08:45] And I realized that one of the goals that I had for my project. Was I wanted to make it so that anybody could do the project and, and like logistically, it couldn’t just be me. It couldn’t, it didn’t have to just be a Girl Scout. It didn’t have to just be this or that it could be anybody. And I wanted to really emphasize that in my project.
[00:09:06] And so when I was filling out things, I, I wanted to put, you know, like the, the shutter, the shutterfly, the, all the fancy booklets and making their own book and having their own story. And then I realized, wait, like, that costs a lot of money. I can find a way to work around that. So originally in my original proposal, I was like, make a booklet.
[00:09:26] And my gold gold award advisor was like, what does that mean? I was like, okay, let me think this through. So I ended up just using what I had my, my computer and I printed all the things out and I’m used Google, Google slides to make my own booklet. So all I needed to do really was Print out pages and staple them.
[00:09:45] And it was just, it was a little hard to navigate how to put the pages together. But it became a nice booklet. I had it color printed from my school and I realized like, Oh wait, you can’t just say that you’re making a book. You have to really explain how you’re going to do that. So it took a little navigating in that aspect.
[00:10:05] As well as in my proposal, I had said a couple of like statistics about, cause originally this was about how. Seniors were isolated, especially after COVID. And so I had just said, seniors are isolated after COVID. And they were like, where did you get that information? I said, well, I went to a nursing home and somebody told me, and they were like, let’s find data on this to make it, you know, reasonable and, you know, logical and all of that to have evidence.
[00:10:30] So I was like, okay, but I mean, it really helped in the end to have everything planned out and get a better idea of what I was working on and why I was working on it.
[00:10:40] Sheryl: Thank you so much for that insight. I, as a committee member for my council, we try and explain to the Girl Scouts that, We’re not trying to make the proposal hard, but we really are trying to help you really think through your project.
[00:10:57] And once your proposal, proposal is approved, it’s, it’s, your project actually is so much easier once you’ve gone through that because now you truly do know what you plan on doing as, as you, as you so eloquently put. So thank you for that. No worries. What else did you learn about the Gold Award process itself that could be helpful for other Girl Scouts.
[00:11:19] Mikenna: At the beginning, I found it kind of interesting that it said, well, what areas are you interested in making a difference for? So there were, there were several, it was like animals, it was human rights. And I was like, Why, like, what are you asking me this? Like, this is my own project. It’s supposed to be special.
[00:11:36] It’s supposed to be unique, but that really helped me realize then why, like why connected to different problems above just, you know, senior isolation. Well, then I realized it goes beyond senior isolation, right? Like it goes, now I’m impacting other. future generations who can be impacted by their stories.
[00:11:56] So I found that that was kind of unique in a way that had I not really known what I was going to do, that would have really helped and guided my inspiration and it made me realize that, I mean, I guess, answer the biggest question there is about Girl Scouts or the Gold Award. Why? Like, why am I doing this project?
[00:12:15] Why does it matter? I, I, so when I started thinking about my Gold Award project, it was literally in fifth and sixth grade, I had come home from a troop meeting and we were just talking about all the big awards you can make and all of that. And they said the gold award and you can make a difference in the world and your community.
[00:12:35] That stuck with me. And right then and there, I was like, yes, I’m gonna work on my gold award. I mean, then I realized, oh, wait, you have to wait until you’re high school and you have to finish this. But over that time. And especially when I was going through, okay, what is needed for the gold award? That big why question that always came up on the gold award proposal and through the process was just huge.
[00:12:57] So that then when I’m telling my story, when I’m sitting here with you and telling everybody, well, why did I do it? Now I know why, because it’s important, because it’s needed, and it ultimately makes a difference.
[00:13:09] Sheryl: Did you do your bronze and silver awards?
[00:13:11] Mikenna: I did, yes.
[00:13:13] Sheryl: And what were your projects?
[00:13:14] Mikenna: So for my bronze award, we did so there’s this group specifically in the Chicagoland area and it was for raising, it was interesting because it was raising money for kids who have cancer, but it wasn’t for treatment.
[00:13:28] It was for transportation. It’s called Compass to Care. And so we, what we did was we connected with the community. And we did bake sales. We raised money. Then, however, there was also a little tweaking in that because apparently you can’t just give money to an organization. So what we did was we raised money and we bought these comfort dolls for each of the patients at different hospitals so that when they’re traveling to treatment, they always have somebody to, you know, hold on to and And hug and know that they’re loved.
[00:13:57] And so along with that, we also make cards then for the patients. And we said, you know, your love, this is from Girl Scouts. You’re going to be great. You’re going to pull through. And then for our silver award it was during, it was right during COVID. So it was kind of. perfect in a way. Our food pantry was running out of food, but we didn’t just want to give food.
[00:14:17] We wanted to make a bigger impact. So one of the things we realized was everybody has a birthday and everybody should be celebrated for who they are. So we raised money. And we bought just from the dollar store from different grocery stores, we bought supplies to make birthday bags. So I’ve almost all of the families that visited and came to the food pantry would be able to walk away with a birthday bag.
[00:14:38] So it had cake, it had like table decorations. It came with it. It actually came in a birthday bag. So somebody can use it for a gift. So we were able to make a difference in that way. So everybody felt like they were loved and special.
[00:14:51] Sheryl: Going back to your gold award project, how did the gold award change you?
[00:14:57] Mikenna: It’s made me more excited, not only for Girl Scouts, but just for who I am and what I find important. I am so dedicated to make this project bigger and better every year. I’ve continued to interview people, even past my gold award. And I’ve. I’m doing that almost every week to make sure that almost, you know, although it seems unreasonable and crazy and out of the box thinking in my mind is if, if I try hard and make this a reality and try and do my best to interview people and make sure that everybody’s story is told, then people do have a chance and don’t feel like they’re alone in the world.
[00:15:39] And so that has changed me from just, I’m going to go visit my small little nursing home and these couple of, as I call them, my peeps, my friends and, and visit other people and get to know other people’s stories. Along with that, I actually just entered, well, I finished the competition. There’s an app designing competition exclusively for girls and a worldwide app designing competition, and it’s create an app based on something in the world that you want to change.
[00:16:08] And so this was just after I finished the gold awards. I thought, Hey, let’s make my silver stories into an app. So I designed the app. I created it so that essentially if somebody, if I were to ever publish the app. Somebody could use it and record the stories of seniors and then submit it. And it could automatically be added to this digital collection of stories.
[00:16:26] And I submitted it and I actually placed semi finalists and through this whole worldwide competition. And so after these experiences, and especially after now finishing the gold award, where it’s not about me earning an award, it’s really about going above and beyond, how can I better myself and my community through my experiences?
[00:16:45] My project, my baby, my, my own creativity and my experiences. Who was on your team and how did they help you? Most notably, the first person I’d have to say that was on my team was my grandma. Obviously she, she’s, she’s always been there for me. She was the first person who brought me to that nursing home to visit my great grandmother, has stuck by my side, has gone every week to go to that nursing home with me.
[00:17:10] And she’s just always been a big help in my life and just my encouragement. Obviously my whole family has been there. My troop leader. She’s just been, I, my mom is also my troop leader, but the other troop leader that I have has just been such good encouragement. She was the one who said, okay, girls, like we’re going to get through this.
[00:17:29] Let’s all work on our gold award. Let’s make a difference. And obviously just. the nursing homes themselves that I have visited. I actually did something at the VFW to do with this Silver Stories project to, to record veterans. So just all these different organizations that have really come together and said, Hey, yes, this is important.
[00:17:49] We should support this. My church, my old grammar school, my high school that I’m at have all kind of promoted my project and said, Hey, like everybody should listen to this podcast. Everybody should be inspired by this. So I’m, I’m very thankful for all the help that I’ve gotten and just the little things like the people that I’ve met along the way, the seniors who have said, Hey, you know, thanks for interviewing me.
[00:18:12] Cause that really made a difference. I really liked the fact that you asked me that question or I got to tell this story. I haven’t told that before. And I’ve been so close with the younger Girl Scouts in my community. Yeah. Even just hearing those girls say, Hey, I listened to so and so story. I was so excited.
[00:18:29] I want to do my gold award, or I want to go visit and talk to seniors in the community. So just little things like that have really made a difference.
[00:18:38] Sheryl: What other Girl Scout experiences have you had?
[00:18:40] Mikenna: At first, before the Gold Award, I think our troop and my community have emphasis that, Oh, you know, the girls that are young and they always did, you know, Girl Scout lock in, which is where we stayed at the school.
[00:18:53] We’ve done so many countless service projects, like Feed My Starving Children, which is where you package food for different countries. Just so many things like that. But then, After and during my gold award, I transitioned to being a leader for the other girls. And I think because of that, I love Girl Scouts even more, selfishly in a way.
[00:19:15] I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed just being a leader and now having these girls look up to me. This past week, we actually just had an event where we taught the girls about the Olympics. And so there was a sportsmanship one. So I was modeling a game with one of the troop leaders and we were talking, okay, let’s Let’s be good sports.
[00:19:33] Let’s say, you know, good job and all this. And girls started to look at that because they knew, okay, she’s doing it. Let’s do it too. So I think now Girl Scouts has transitioned from me being the little girl, the little daisy who walked in saying, Hey, I get to sell cookies to now teaching other young girls.
[00:19:52] Hey, you get to sell cookies and be yourself and be an entrepreneur and earn the gold award and do all of this. So just every moment that I’ve been able to spend with Girl Scouts and really just making a difference in any way I can and being of help has just been the best. And I really couldn’t be more thankful to be a Girl Scout.
[00:20:11] Sheryl: What are your future plans?
[00:20:13] Mikenna: I am currently a senior in high school, so I’ll have all the next year to continue. I want to continue making this gold award project bigger and better. And then I’m hoping to earn a scholarship to go to Marquette university and I’m looking at just doing different service things.
[00:20:32] I’m not really sure what I want to major in. I’m looking at nursing. But I know that I definitely want to continue doing Girl Scouts. I want to hopefully become a leader one day. And lead different troops and everything. And I am just so excited that now as I’m getting older, there are so many more opportunities to just do service and help younger girls and Girl Scouts and beyond.
[00:20:55] Sheryl: What else would you like to share with the audience?
[00:20:58] Mikenna: For any Girl Scout out there thinking about Gold Award or just even just a Girl Scout out there, do the Gold Award. You would be so surprised at how amazing it is. And it’s not because you get to put it on a college resume or you get to say, Hey, I get a fancy gold medal.
[00:21:16] Like, It’s about the people you meet and the experiences you have. And the Gold Award is so amazing because you get so much support and so much help, but it’s your project. It’s your next big thing of, hey, this is me and this is what I find passionate. The Gold Award has really allowed me to become myself and realize what is important to me that I want to continue on for the rest of my life.
[00:21:39] For any girl out there or any person, I would just say, just be yourself, be with other people, and Make a difference. I mean, it could just be smiling at somebody. I’m, I’m such a big person for just kindness. Be yourself and be kind to other people. And I think that’s something that the Gold Award and just Girl Scouts teaches you to be kind and that’ll change your whole world and other people’s.
[00:22:03] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:22:05] Mikenna: Well, first of all, whenever I’m making s’mores, it’s outside with my fire pit and my family gathered round. So the best way to make s’mores or any treat is to share with people you love. So the first thing I do is I put the marshmallow on a skewer. I like my marshmallows charred, which is a really random thing, but I like them charred.
[00:22:28] And I put it in there and I literally let it on fire. I blow the fire out and I put it between the chocolate and the graham cracker, smoosh it, and there you go. Perfect s’more, in my opinion.
[00:22:38] Sheryl: Well, thank you so much for being with us today.
[00:22:40] Mikenna: Thank you so much for this opportunity.
[00:22:42] Sheryl: Make sure to click follow or subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released, power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:22:53] 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 youyoutube.com/sherylMRobinsonhanks again for listening, and we’ll see you next time.