[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. I have Megan with us. Hi Megan.
[00:00:19] Megan: Hi.
[00:00:19] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:23] Megan: I started a special needs baseball program at my local little league because I wanted. You know, spread awareness about the importance of programs for special needs children. And also, I noticed that in my own town there were not a lot of programs athletic programs for special needs children.
[00:00:39] So I wanted to make a difference and give all the kids in my town opportunity to, you know, make lasting memories for a lifetime, like playing baseball.
[00:00:47] Sheryl: How did you find this program growing up?
[00:00:50] Megan: I always was at our little league, cuz I had two older bro, two older brothers and like I grew up at the baseball field and so my dad became very involved in the little league and he had heard like, like other programs be established in like other towns for special needs children.
[00:01:08] And they started like a charter called the Challenger. So when I noticed we didn’t have one in my own town and even our surrounding towns didn’t have one, I decided that for my project I would start one in our town. So that way I could, you know, make it accessible to everyone.
[00:01:22] Sheryl: What was involved in setting up that challenger division?
[00:01:25] Megan: A lot of paperwork. I had to file an official like charter and everything. I had to talk to the board at the little league. I had to like get it approved with them. I had to make sure they were on board in starting this program and then make my town aware. I posted flyers everywhere. I attended all the events and like elementary schools, like just to get the word up there of the program start.
[00:01:47] But a lot, a lot of paperwork and a lot of flyers.
[00:01:50] Sheryl: Who was on your team and how did they help you?
[00:01:52] Megan: My service unit was a big help in helping me, like just develop my proposal and stuff like that. My biggest support team was my parents. They, they were always there, like if I was like questioning like, Should I, should I do this? Can I go through with this?
[00:02:05] They were always there and asking questions and since my dad was so involved in the little league, he helped me make connections with everyone there and the board there helped me too. They helped me like actually go, The process of creating it and stuff like that. But they were my team.
[00:02:19] And then while I was running my actual program, a lot of my team were like some of my closest friends, cuz we did like a buddy program. So in the program our special needs children were paired up with a volunteer. So a lot of my friends from Girl Scouts and from school came to help and they would pair up with a buddy for the day.
[00:02:37] And my twin brother is on the baseball team at the high school, so a lot of his friends came and helped out. So they were teaching the kids baseball skills. So it was a whole community event where everyone came together, The lil league, the high school, my own friends, Girl Scouts. It was a lot of people were on the team.
[00:02:53] I certainly didn’t do it alone.
[00:02:54] Sheryl: What kind of feedback did you get about the program?
[00:02:56] Megan: A lot of positive feedback. The kids loved it. A lot of my kids were younger, so they were like third grade and younger, even though it was open from children to eight, from ages four to 18. But they loved it. They would come in every week saying, Yay, baseball.
[00:03:11] It’s baseball time. And the parents, actually, I sent out a survey at the end of every baseball season of like, If we could do anything better, like, like during our practices and stuff like that or how their kids were liking it or just any feedback. And the parents would come in every week, not just in the survey, but they would rave about it.
[00:03:26] They said they loved it, that it was so good for them, especially cuz we continued it during Covid and they had lost a lot of the one on one stuff and school and stuff like that. They said that it was really beneficial for them, like just. Getting them engaged, getting them moving and stuff like that. So the parents loved it.
[00:03:42] They said it was good for them, and the kids had such a blast. And even the volunteers, I would, you know, talk to ’em after every like session, practice and stuff like that. And they said it was like amazing. It was the most rewarding experience they had. They loved working with the kids. They were so sweet.
[00:03:57] And like even they had a blast and they were having just as much fun. So it, it was really great to hear the feedback that, like all the hard work that goes into it, like everyone enjoyed it and had a blast and I had a lot of fun.
[00:04:06] Sheryl: How many children ended up signing up for the challenge your division?
[00:04:10] Megan: That was actually my biggest challenge in my project was I did a lot of promoting it and I did a lot of flyers and I think over time we had. Maybe like a little over 10. Cause like they kind of came and went. But the ones that did come and we had a couple stick around for all, I’ve done it for I think four years now, or this will be my fourth year.
[00:04:33] So the ones we’ve had a couple stick through from the beginning, they said they loved it and they’re, they, you know, they share it with their friends. But that wasn’t a biggest challenge, was like getting enough kids. Even just making the difference in the lives of a couple people, you know, that still means the world to them.
[00:04:48] It doesn’t matter like how many kids we make a difference on. It’s just the difference we make with the ones we have.
[00:04:53] Sheryl: Do you have a favorite memory from your project that you’d like to share?
[00:04:56] Megan: One of our girls, she had down syndrome and she actually broke her leg over this summer, and I think one of the sweetest things was
[00:05:07] one of our other athletes came over and they were so concerned when she came in with like this cast, and he immediately asked, Can I sign it? And then at the end of the season, it ended up being our last meeting for the season. We all, the last thing we did was we got our trophies and stuff like that.
[00:05:23] We celebrated, we had cupcakes and we all signed the little girl’s cast and. So happy. She was like, just like giggling. And then they all like gave her a group hug and that was just, it was so heartwarming cuz you could see how like they had made friendships and how they like genuinely cared about each other.
[00:05:39] They looked forward to seeing each other. Every time they came they were like, Oh, where’s so and so, Where’s so and so? And like just watching them all sign our cast and like, they were like drawing pictures too. They were drawing hearts and saying like, Oh, love so and so, And it was, it was so cute. I think that was the, probably the favorite memory for my season.
[00:05:56] Sheryl: How did your leadership skills grow during your project?
[00:05:59] Megan: They grew tremendously. I struggle with anxiety a lot, and public speaking was not my strong suit. I would struggle so hard, like getting up for a presentation in class. I really couldn’t step up and lead. And I picked a project that would make me step up and lead because you know, I wanted to get better about that, you know, improve that part myself and
[00:06:22] I kind of forced myself to step up, lead the kids, tell them what to do, and like teaching them too. I had to like actually give them directions, stuff like that. And even just like talking and speaking in front of the board at Little League, I spoke in front of my Girl Scout service unit. And then, you know, talking with my volunteers of telling them like I had to teach them how to work with special needs children cuz a lot of them hadn’t had very many experience before.
[00:06:47] So just speaking with all of them. And just getting up every week and having to lead these sessions with them. I really, I got used to public speaking and, you know, leading a crowd and having people look to me to be a leader, which I had never had before. And it actually ended up, it really motivated me.
[00:07:06] I got, I’ve always been very involved in school, but I knew like through my challenge, vision of stepping up to lead, that I could go for bigger things. So like even in school it kind of helped me, like I went out and I was vice president of my student council. The stuff I learned from my Girl Scout Gold Award and like the leadership skills I improved upon, not only helped me like make my project great, but it helped me like in school too, which was really kind of cool.
[00:07:27] Sheryl: Very nice. What did you learn about the Gold Award process during it? You said you had a lot of support from your service unit that could be helpful information for others considering going for gold?
[00:07:39] Megan: Covid had just hit and we hadn’t had a lot of kids, so I really, I didn’t know what to do with my project. At first I didn’t even know like how to like start.
[00:07:46] I did my silver award, so I kind of knew the process of like starting like paperwork. But My service unit kind of helped me prepare for like an interview to get it approved. And then I struggled a lot in the middle of my project. I didn’t quite know what to do and I turned to my service unit and I was like, Oh, I don’t know like what to do,
[00:08:03] I continue my project, Do I stop? Like it’s covid. I don’t know what to do. And then like, I have to work one on one with these kids. I didn’t know if it was possible and they told me to contact the people in charge of like the gold Award, and I ended up talking to this woman, Nicole from Girl Scouts, and she helped me so much.
[00:08:19] She motivated me to continue my project. I ended up meeting with them on Zoom and they gave me suggestions of like, What to do and like how to kind of rework my project because I had based it around getting like a lot of kids involved. So they kind of told me how to rework my project into something new.
[00:08:37] That way I could still complete it. And they also helped me like push through like the covid and helped me figure out like how I could run my program through Covid. So I ended up meeting with a lot of people on a Gold War team and they helped me like even just revise my project and just keep it going to make sure like I didn’t like,
[00:08:52] give up something that could help so many people.
[00:08:54] Sheryl: You mentioned you’re involved in a lot of activities at school. How do you balance your school and your girl scouts when you were working on this project? All of the things that you do?
[00:09:03] Megan: A lot of time management. I had calendars. I have like three calendar apps on my phone just to organize everything.
[00:09:10] I have one for just my schoolwork, my clubs, my girl Scout stuff. So just a lot of writing it down. I’m a very visual person, so I’d have to write down everything I had to do. I’d make to do list of what I had to do. It wasn’t easy, but I was definitely determined and motivated. I needed to keep myself on track so I wouldn’t fall behind and just, you know, writing it out and kind of taking it one day at a time.
[00:09:32] It can get overwhelming, like get being so involved in stuff and like looking at the big picture, taking it one day at a time and just breaking it down of what I had to do. That’s how I did it.
[00:09:42] Sheryl: You’ve mentioned a couple of your activities, what activities are you involved in and why are those so important to you?
[00:09:48] Megan: I think the most important thing to me is my job. I’m a teacher in a daycare center. And I worked with kids age kids ages two to three, and I love going to work every day. I worked like, I think a lot in the summer, like almost 10 hours a day. And it was, it’s so rewarding being able to teach them and like watching them like grow and like watching ’em be proud of myself, which I watched them.
[00:10:12] My challenges vision too. It was so great. Like I was teaching them skills and I was watching them be proud of themselves, like, you know, when they caught a ball or when they like threw it right. And. Even at work, I do the same thing. I watch ’em like learn their colors and like a lot of my kids a couple of ’em had like speech delays and I had one student who was autistic, but he hadn’t been diagnosed yet.
[00:10:32] So like I have worked with like a lot of kids before and that’s just like really important to me. And like, it’s not just a job. I love making a difference in those kids. And like that’s really important to me is like seeing those kids smile and. I do Girl Scouts and I love, like, now that I’m older, I love working with like the little kids and like I help like run events for them now.
[00:10:51] And like I remember running like the cookie rallies when like, I remember going to them and like now I get to run them and watch them play the game. So I love doing Girl Scouts, especially now that I’m like older and I get to help other people. I just started at Mama University, so I’m kind of.
[00:11:06] Getting involved in new clubs and stuff like that. But I joined a couple education clubs and one, kind of like mine, it’s called it’s something we work with special needs kids and we help them like be athletic, like we play soccer with them and stuff like that. And there’s another one, I’m going into schools and working with special needs kids and like playing games with them there.
[00:11:26] So I’m just getting involved in clubs at school now that I’m in college, which is exciting. But in high school, like. I was very involved in student council and just a lot of stuff. I loved theater too. That was really important to me. It has nothing to do with my project really. It’s just like my passion.
[00:11:45] I have tons of playbills hung up in my room. I loved doing theater. That was always like a passion of mine, something I really enjoyed. An expensive hobby, but I loved. Those are kind of things that are important to me.
[00:11:56] Sheryl: What was one of your favorite productions?
[00:11:58] Megan: Senior year we did Mama Mia for our musical and the music was great.
[00:12:03] And I remember like even just prom, my junior year, we were dancing to all the songs of ABA and then we found out the next year we were doing Mamamia. So it was like a full circle moment. It was such a good show. Like we were coming back from Covid. It was so happy and like, I had all like my friends from theater together, and it was our senior show and we danced.
[00:12:24] The last song, they just sung and dance. And I, I did light crew, so we would make the lights. They were like disco balls and there was all these lights, and we just would dance our hearts out to the last song. So just, that was, that was my favorite production by far. It was so fun. It was so colorful. It was awesome.
[00:12:43] It was like a full circle moment too. It was a good closing senior show.
[00:12:46] Sheryl: What other girl scout memories do you have you’d like to share?
[00:12:49] Megan: We would go camping every year for our canery with our troop, but we kind of called it glamping. We weren’t very like outdoorsy, like let’s we, the first night we used to like roast hot dogs and do the whole start, start the bonfire and make it on the grill.
[00:13:07] And then by the second night we were kind of tired of roughing it. So a lot of times there was. Subway and not really like the camping way going on, but it was really funny cuz we would, we would just laugh and that’s what Girl Scouts was about to, to us and our troop leaders, they definitely like, well you guys are making friends and making memories.
[00:13:29] So if Subway is what you girls want to eat before you go ziplining, then that’s what you’re gonna have. They didn’t really care, but I loved, I loved all of our camping memories. I did not like mosquitoes or being out. Outside, but it was so fun, like just roasting, like marshmallows and sitting by the fire. We loved ziplining and just like the whole process of camping was just like so fun for us.
[00:13:53] We, we loved that and we were kind of sad we didn’t get to go. Our final one, me and all my friends were girl scouts. It ended up being the same night as our prom, so, and our prom weekend. So we ended up, we, we couldn’t finish out our last one, but we, we loved camping. We still talk about it now. How much fun that was.
[00:14:11] Sheryl: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the audience?
[00:14:14] Megan: I’d like to give a piece of advice to some of the girls scouts. I know that in my service unit, not a lot of girls go for the Silver Ward or the Gold Award, cuz it sounds really daunting. It’s a lot of hours, a lot of time, and a lot of time they don’t know like what to do.
[00:14:27] Cause you know, it’s, it’s a big project and you have to have an idea and you wanna make a difference and you feel like it has to be a big project. But I just, I. To motivate girls to go for it because I’m so glad that I did, even though like I thought I might give up, I thought I wouldn’t do it. I’m so glad that I did cuz I, I see the difference I made on other people and it’s so great and rewarding and just, you know, doing something to change the world is awesome and not a lot of people go for it.
[00:14:54] And I, I would love more girls to go for it. There’s so much support out there in the Girl Scout community that if you, you could turn to anybody and they’ll help you along the way. And I would just, I, I wanna motivate girls. Go for it. Cuz there needs to be more Girl Gold Award. Girl Scouts.
[00:15:10] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:15:11] Megan: I’m a s’mores connoisseur. I am known in my family and all my friends for eating so many s’mores over the, the past three summers. We keep account, I think I reached like 150 something this summer because I eat so many s’mores when I’m I, I have ’em like every night, like three or four every night, and I just put them like on a plate.
[00:15:33] I’ll put the graham cracker and the marshal on a plate and I’ll put it in the microwave. 20 seconds because they’ll kind of explode in the microwave. And then I just put the chocolate and gram cracker on top and I eat it like that. And always with a cup of. But I’m, I’m known as a smores connoisseur it’s kind of funny.
[00:15:50] Sheryl: Well, thanks for joining us.
[00:15:52] Megan: Thank you for having me.
[00:15:53] 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.
[00:16:05] Walter: The Hearts of Gold Podcast is brought to you by the Grow and Share Network produced by Off the Walter Media Productions.
[00:16:12] Thank you for listening and spreading the word on what we. If you want to share your story of how you earned your goal award, reach out and send an email to grow and share outlook.com. 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.
[00:16:32] That’s youtube.com/sheryl, The letter m, Robinson. Take care and we’ll see you next time.