[00:00:00] Walter: [00:00:00] The hearts of gold podcast is brought to you by the grow and shared network produced by off the Walter media productions.
[00:00:14] Sheryl: [00:00:14] Welcome to hearts of gold. Today we have Carley with us. Hi Carley.
[00:00:19] Carley: [00:00:19] Hi.
[00:00:19] Sheryl: [00:00:19] Can you tell us about your girl scout gold award project?
[00:00:23] Carley: [00:00:23] I’m from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Harrisburg is obviously the capital of Pennsylvania. And for being the Capitol, it’s actually a stewed desert. A food desert is anywhere that you have to travel more than a mile to get groceries, or it lacks fresh food coming in Harrisburg city for kids.
[00:00:41] Actually one in seven kids struggle to get food. So for my project, I did a community garden. It’s actually at an old abandoned high school and it’s in their backs. So ball field. So we had a ton of space to work with. So we went, we built boxes out of [00:01:00] pallets and we did some tire, um, tire, like garden box type things.
[00:01:05] Someone actually dropped tires off there and just kinda like ditched them. And I was like, let’s. Fold some garden type things in there. So that was basically what we did for that. And then the second part of my project, there’s definitely like a lack of knowledge on a healthy eating just for like everyone in general.
[00:01:22] So I held an event called nutrition, was an Olympian. When we sat down and discussed different types of meal plans and healthy eating, and we made workbooks and all kinds of handouts to give to people.
[00:01:33] Sheryl: [00:01:33] So, what was your favorite part of your project?
[00:01:36] Carley: [00:01:36] Probably actually building the garden boxes. So, um, we started with pallets.
[00:01:42] We went to some company and they had a bunch in the back. We got all these pallets and we took all the wood apart and little did we know most of the pallets for drive were dry rotted. So we had to like go through and pick out the wood that we could actually use. And we built them. And then we went to home Depot [00:02:00] and got some extra wood and things.
[00:02:01] But then for plants, we went on Facebook marketplace and we got a bunch of dying plants for foam lady. And we had a nurse some back the health. So it was really cool watching, like these plants that were about to die, all of a sudden going back to life and like producing all this, I don’t know, fruit and vegetables and things like that.
[00:02:18] And I don’t know, it was just cool to watch like, Dying to like flourishing and probably the people I met that was another really cool experience. My project advisor was, um, Jordan Hill, who plays for, you, played for the Seahawks and Detroit lions. So he was pretty cool working with him and having like.
[00:02:41] That connection there. And then another cool connection was, uh, Anita and all Richardson. She was the Olympic gold medalist. Who did the nutritional with an Olympian event.
[00:02:50] Sheryl: [00:02:50] And how did you connect with these people?
[00:02:52] Carley: [00:02:52] The gardens are actually the high school. The old high school that they were at this building, um, NFL [00:03:00] players bought it and they’re turning it into an eco village.
[00:03:01] And I volunteered to help them a little bit over the summer. And they were talking about putting gardens up and I was like, why don’t we build garden boxes? And I can, we can do it as like a girl scout gold award. And I was like, so I basically took over like organizing and things. And then, I would Juliet cause my whole troop graduated off.
[00:03:20] So I didn’t really have like, like a so-called leader at this point, since I was by myself. So I was like, do you want to, you want to be my project advisors and he’s local. So he was like, I’ll be your project advisor. And then, um, a couple of the other people who like work at the organization, um, were on my team.
[00:03:37] So I have him and. Just a bunch of like random, pretty awesome people that were super supportive.
[00:03:45] Sheryl: [00:03:45] What was your biggest fear during your project and how did you overcome it?
[00:03:48] Carley: [00:03:48] Since it’s an abandoned building, it doesn’t have water running and for a garden, you need water to make the plants grow. So we tried so many different things and [00:04:00] I was on Facebook marketplace and I found a water cooler and I was messaging this man.
[00:04:04] And I was like, can I please buy your water cooler? But he was an hour and a half away. I was trying to figure out he didn’t, he was older, so we didn’t have PayPal cash. I couldn’t have any of that. And I was like, would you like me to drive the hour and a half to bring you the money? And then I was like, then I need someone in a truck.
[00:04:20] So he ended up donating us the watercooler, as long as we put it in memory of his grandson who just recently passed away. So we made a little Memorial plaque and put it on the water cooler. But getting the water cooler here was actually a struggle because no one had like a truck to get it here at the time.
[00:04:38] So he dropped it off. It’s some ladies husbands work who lived in Harrisburg, then her husband and her drove it up here when she was working. And then some other dude had to pick it up in Harrisburg and drive it the whole way to the site. And then we had to drag it out to the football field. It was a pretty.
[00:04:57] Interesting experience. And then once we had it there, we [00:05:00] didn’t think about, we had to get it filled. So someone there ended up knowing someone local who came and filled the water tank for us. So yes. Getting water to water. The plants was definitely the hardest part.
[00:05:11] Sheryl: [00:05:11] That was an experience.
[00:05:13] Carley: [00:05:13] It was, it was like tracking the water cooler. I’m like, okay, it’s coming to Harrisburg this day.
[00:05:18] Sheryl: [00:05:18] What is one thing, you know, now that you wish you knew before you started?
[00:05:23] Carley: [00:05:23] So I’m like a control freak, basically. I like to make sure I know exactly what’s going on with everything. And when you have a team they’re really there for you to like, utilize and like rely on and like bounce ideas off.
[00:05:35] So maybe like being less. Stressed and realizing like you have the support and people who want to help you. So use them.
[00:05:42] Sheryl: [00:05:42] Your event with the Olympian was virtual. What did it take to set up that virtual event and what did you learn from that?
[00:05:49] Carley: [00:05:49] I met her actually at a fundraising event through Harrisburg.
[00:05:52] Um, she was. I believe it was a fundraising event for a Katie who had cancer. And she was like speaking to raise money or donate money to [00:06:00] go. And I actually reached out to her Facebook and I was like, Hey, I went to one of your events. I sent her a picture of me and her from like, Four years ago when I was like, I’m working on my goal.
[00:06:10] I wonder if you come speak at home. And she was like, yeah, definitely. So me and her sat down like on zoom. Cause she’s in, I believe Tennessee right now. And we went through what we were going to talk about and how we were going to do it. So we ended up. Doing it virtually. And we did it as like a Facebook event.
[00:06:26] And so we can have it on Facebook live and there are so many amazing resource groups out there. Like people who are like willing to help you tell you like what they did wrong and what they did. Right. And like support you. Silence posting links, like come to our event, come to our event. We have a decent turnout, but we had her go through through like all the different sections of deeds.
[00:06:47] Like yeah. Workbook type things we made, we made handouts and then we made workbooks to go with one of them. I believe I forget what that is, but one of the badges. So we went off for the event. We had people ask questions. It was pretty good. [00:07:00] Biggest mistake was not usually on a normal Facebook live. You can have two people on at once, but in an event live, you can only have one person speaking, which was weird.
[00:07:11] But that was probably like the biggest problem with that, but she did good, and I was just typing in the comment boxes.
[00:07:18] Sheryl: [00:07:18] It’s helpful to have two people so that one can monitor comments while the other is speaking.
[00:07:23] Carley: [00:07:23] Definitely.
[00:07:24] Sheryl: [00:07:24] During the pandemic, you were a graduating senior. What did you do special during the pandemic?
[00:07:31] Carley: [00:07:31] I’m actually high risk. So I really couldn’t leave my house much. And I started making masks and donating them the frontline and essential workers. And I made over, I want to say 1200, almost 1300 masks till today. And it started with my cousin who is actually a hospice worker. I took and made mass for companies and shipped them out to her.
[00:07:53] And then, her company posted them and like tagged me in it. And all of a sudden after that I was getting shares and [00:08:00] comments and tags and all these people were requesting math, but I like ran out of fabric. So well dropping stuff on my, or dropping stuff off of my front porch, getting like random, like stuff mailed to me.
[00:08:12] Like I found this, hopefully you can make mass. So I had like the whole, like little community behind me supporting like this mass project. And everyone was like, yeah, Doing whatever they could to help. And it was pretty cool. But then, um, I ran out of fabric because I was making all these masks and I started to make a collection out of like, I was so close, like clothes are like my main thing I do.
[00:08:35] And I started making a collection out of household items, like from anywhere from old VHS to, so my senior year schoolwork, Coke caps and straws, like anything. I think I had an abundance of in my house. I started making it in the clothes and then. I kind of just was known as the girl who was making masks and like random household clothes.
[00:08:56] So that’s pretty much what I was doing during the pandemic, trying to, yeah. [00:09:00] Past my time. And also I did community craft classes online and someone could leave. So I had, I don’t know. I think I had. People from 23 States, four countries and whatever else on there. And we would all sit and talk about how the pandemic would like affecting us and all the different areas.
[00:09:17] So it was pretty cool.
[00:09:18] Sheryl: [00:09:18] And your family crafts too?
[00:09:20] Carley: [00:09:20] Yes, we had, we have family craft. They have social distancing, but like, we all went to my cousin’s house last weekend and we go to the dollar store and we buy all kinds of stuff and we like completely transform it.
[00:09:32] Sheryl: [00:09:32] During the pandemic, you also install the little free library.
[00:09:35] Carley: [00:09:35] I did build a little local free library. It was actually for my silver award. When I first did my silver award, it was supposed to go up at this business, but they ended up going out of like business slash moving locations. So I was like, that’s kind of too far. Didn’t exactly work out. So I was sitting in my garage and I know in my area there’s definitely always the need of like resources and things [00:10:00] kids always need.
[00:10:00] So I contacted a local business such as start it up and I was like, what’d you like a library outside of we’re actually a coffee shop. So we, yeah, I installed the little local free library outside and we got so many donations that we ended up putting bookshelves outside that were like, Weatherize that way.
[00:10:17] Like we could have all the books outside too, but it’s like amazing to see what goes in and what goes out in a week. So it was really cool to know that even when libraries were closed, there was still access to books for people who needed them and wanted them.
[00:10:29] Sheryl: [00:10:29] You mentioned that you’re a Juliet now. What other girl scout experiences have you had though?
[00:10:34] Carley: [00:10:34] I’ve been a girl scout since it. I want to say PR preschool, preschool, kindergarten. Like as soon as you can start, I remember I was a Daisy brownie. All those, I went the whole way through, but my trip ended up graduating off last year. Everyone was pretty much a senior and. There was no point to have a troop with only one girl.
[00:10:54] Cause I think you need a minimum of five, but I’ve had so many cool experiences. One of my [00:11:00] favorite experiences ever was we were at the girl scout girls day expo, and one of the coaches, there was a lady speaking and she was a coach. And now she coaches for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But I met her at this girl scout event.
[00:11:15] And I stayed in pretty close contact with her. So like I’ll text her every so often. There’d be like, like updates and we just it’s pretty cool. But before she works for the Buccaneers, she was actually an indoor arena football coach. So she like sent me tickets to go to a game and it was all because I went to an expo and she spoke and I asked the question to her after.
[00:11:35] So that was probably one of my favorite experiences. Um, one of the things that really motivated me for the garden was. Last year when we were still a troop, we were working on our journey and it was called. So what, and we went around to all the different gardens and farmer’s markets and everything. And I was like, this is so cool.
[00:11:52] I really want to start a garden. So that was one of the main, another thing that really motivated me to do the garden.
[00:11:58] Sheryl: [00:11:58] You’ve interacted with a lot of [00:12:00] athletes. You are an athlete yourself at a prestigious university. Where are you? What do you do?
[00:12:05] Carley: [00:12:05] I played tennis and I actually got injured my junior year and I thought pretty much my tennis career was done.
[00:12:14] I got diagnosed with a couple of different things and my private lessons coach was actually the coach at Penn state Harrisburg. And that’s one of the reasons I ended up going to Penn state Harrisburg was to play tennis because that coach is so amazing. And she’s also one of the people that motivated me to do my gold award.
[00:12:31] She used to probably call me, I want to say every week. And she’s like, did you start your gold award yet? Did you come up with an idea? So if it wouldn’t have been her always in my ear saying you needed a year going to work, you need to do your gold award. It probably. Might not have happened, but she was one of the biggest motivators.
[00:12:47] And because of her, I’ve done so much stuff and continued to go back to playing tennis.
[00:12:53] Sheryl: [00:12:53] So what is in your future?
[00:12:55] Carley: [00:12:55] I’m going to Penn state Harrisburg. I just started and I went to [00:13:00] school for business to hopefully one day open my own business because I sew and stuff all the time. So I really just want to teach the skill of sewing.
[00:13:08] The people. That’s like my main goal, because it’s a dying art and no one really knows how to do it. And they like dies off. Like it’s, it’s a crucial thing. Everyone I feel like should know how to do because people, as soon as they get a hole in something, they just get rid of their clothes. But it’s like something that could be so easily fixed.
[00:13:27] And it could save people so much money. So my main thing is I want to go to school and open my own business and make it geared towards teaching people how to sell.
[00:13:35] Sheryl: [00:13:35] How do you make your s’mores?
[00:13:36] Carley: [00:13:36] What’s a s’more?
[00:13:37] Sheryl: [00:13:37] Oh my goodness, how exciting! A girl scout who doesn’t know us more, I get to teach something.
[00:13:44] Um, a s’more is where you would take a marshmallow and you roast it and you take Hershey’s chocolate. It has to be Hershey’s chocolate. And you put it between two Graham crackers and a roasted marshmallow. If you roast it the way I do, which [00:14:00] is golden Brown and very gooey, um, it will melt the chocolate and you get this gooey yummy, yummy treat. It’s S, um, apostrophe mores.
[00:14:11] So you always want some more.
[00:14:20] Thanks for joining me, Carly.
[00:14:22] Carley: [00:14:22] Thank you for having me.
[00:14:23] Sheryl: [00:14:23] Make sure to click subscribe. So you always know when new episodes are released. And don’t forget to power your passion, and conquer your challenges.
[00:14:35] Walter: [00:14:35] The hearts of gold podcast is brought to you by the grow and share network produced by off the Walter media productions.
[00:14:41] Thank you for listening and spreading the word on what we do. If you want to share your story of how you earned your gold award, reach out and send an email to growandshare@outlook.com.
[00:14:53] Be sure to listen to the newest episodes on your favorite podcast app, as well as view the full video episodes on [00:15:00] youtube.com/Sheryl M. Robinson. That’s youtube.com/Sheryl, the letter M, Robinson. Take care and we’ll see you next time.
