Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles will honor the 2022 Gold Award Girl Scouts – including four from the Pasadena area – at its annual Gold Award Ceremony on Sunday, June 5, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
“The 239 honorees have each demonstrated exceptional leadership and overseen projects that have made significant impacts on their LA communities and beyond, earning them Girl Scouts’ highest honor and rank,” the GSGLA said in a statement. “Examples include a girl who created a program for the elderly to identify digital scams, a girl who trained first responders how to serve the developmentally disabled community, or girls coming together to create long-distance learning kits for several educational subjects for the schools in their communities.”
Over 1,000 guests, including the awardees’ family members and friends, dignitaries, and GSGLA members and staff will be attending the awards ceremony, hosted by Malia Mailes, a 2009 Gold Award recipient. Ellen S. Swarts, Board Chair of the GSGLA will give the welcome remarks, and Theresa Edy Kiene, GSGLA CEO, will deliver a keynote address, the statement said.
Established in 1916, four years after the Girl Scouts started in the United States, the Girl Scout Gold Award was formerly called the Golden Eaglet, the Curved Bar, and First Class awards. Nationwide, only six percent of all eligible Girl Scouts across 111 regional councils achieve this prestigious award. Girl Scouts who earn the honor automatically enter the military one rank higher, qualify for college scholarships, and more.
In order to earn the Gold Award, Girl Scouts spend years planning and executing challenging, large-scale projects that are innovative, impactful, and sustainable.
This year’s Gold Award class dedicated more than 19,100 hours of community service to projects covering a wide range of topics, from planting local gardens to fighting food insecurity to writing and publishing books or gathering and distributing personal protection equipment (PPE) for low-income Los Angeles residents during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Included in the list of awardees this year is Amanda Kiesel, whose Gold Award project was the Pasadena History Museum Virtual Docent Spotlight Tour, recognized for making an impact on her community by expanding the Museum’s tour guide program to an even larger audience. Her project was for elementary school students who otherwise couldn’t go to in-person field trips but learned more about Pasadena’s history and culture through this alternative experience. Kiesel has been a Girl Scout for 12 years, at Troop 13841, and is currently a senior at Marshall Fundamental High School.
Alyssa Miyamoto led classes at the Pasadena Boys and Girls Club that introduced difference cultures through crafts, live performances, and cooking. Her Gold Award project, Cultural Connections, helped expand kids’ world view and increased their awareness of society’s diversity. She is a Girl Scout Ambassador in Troop 7461.
Teja Moe partnered with the South Pasadena City government to advance the City’s environmental initiatives by creating promotional materials for her Gold Award project, Reducing Carbon Footprints in a Household. She also created a website containing reliable resources to make researching global warming and climate change easier. One of the resources include a video she created that goes through five steps for people to quickly reduce their carbon footprint.00
Alexis Rosas brought light to the topic of mental health and disconnection during difficult times and provided a safe space within a new campus club at Pasadena City College, called MyMindMatters. Through her Gold Award project, The Power of Connecting, she organized campus-wide activities and bi-weekly club meetings, and advocated her club’s mission to high school students and her peers.
For more information about the 2022 Gold Awards, visit https://issuu.com/girlscoutsofgreaterlosangeles/docs/2022-gold-award-yearbook.
Sunday’s ceremony begins at 2 p.m.
