![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/gs.jpg?resize=750%2C500&ssl=1\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe Girl Scout Gold Award recognizes girls in grades 9 through 12 who demonstrate extraordinary leadership through the planning and execution of sustainable, measurable, difference-making projects. This honor is the mark of the truly remarkable and puts these accomplished young women in elite company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year’s class of Gold Award Girl Scouts completed their projects between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021 and it covers a range of future leaders, from those who are starting their senior year in the fall to others who just completed their first year of college. What they all had in common was the added difficulty of completing their projects in the midst of a global pandemic. Their perseverance and resilience shone through as they adapted where needed without ever losing sight of their goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And those goals are truly impressive. Each girl chooses her own project and they span a wide range of interests and needs including social, environmental, educational, health, emotional and ecological. Their perseverance and passion have led to solutions that will have a lasting impact with projects that include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* Building awareness and action to support teens dealing with anxiety, depression, self-harm, metal-health challenges and abuse
* Several projects that help improve the lives of children in foster care, from making them feel supported to teaching them about financial literacy to how they can adapt once they leave foster care
* Creating better understanding for children and parents around LGBTQ+ related issues
* Educational opportunities designed to advocate for sea turtles and other aquatic animals whose lives and habitats are threatened by careless actions
* Addressing poverty across the globe and the critical need for education, food, clean water, and medical supplies through fundraising and informational videos
* A number of initiatives that benefit the mental and emotional well-being of the elderly<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Girl Scouts must spend a minimum of 80 hours planning and implementing their Gold Award projects, which often encompasses a span of one to two years from the project’s start to finish. The award is a dramatic example of how Girl Scouts’ all-girl setting gives girls leadership experiences so they can contribute to society now and in the future. Notably, a Girl Scout who has earned the Gold Award immediately rises one rank in any of the U.S. military branches and is eligible for a number of college scholarships.
Those receiving the Girl Scout Gold Awards on June 12 reside in communities across west central Florida and represent Hernando, Hillsborough, Marion, Pasco, Pinellas, and Polk counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Gold Award is conferred to fewer than 6% of Girl Scouts annually, and approximately one million Girl Scouts nationwide have earned the Gold Award or its equivalent since 1916.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Editor’s Note: This year’s Girl Scout Gold Award recipients are from Apollo Beach, Brooksville, Dunnellon, Lakeland, Largo, Lithia, Lutz, Ocala, Palm Harbor, Port Richey, Riverview, Seminole, Spring Hill, St. Petersburg, Tampa, and Wesley Chapel. Additional information regarding their individual projects is available upon request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About Girls Scouts of West Central Florida Founded in 1912, Girl Scouts of the USA is the preeminent leadership development organization for girls with nearly 2.5 million girl and adult members worldwide. Girl Scouts is the leading authority on girls’ healthy development and building courage, confidence and character to make the world a better place. Girl Scouts of West Central Florida (GSWCF) has nearly 25,000 total members. GSWCF serves more than 16,000 girls and more than 8,500 adult members in Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Marion, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sumter counties. GSWCF offers every girl a chance to practice a lifetime of leadership, skill-building, community service and personal success. GSWCF receives funding from the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, the Conn Memorial Foundation, the Florida Department of Education, the Florida’s Natural Growers Foundation, the Givewell Community Foundation, the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners, the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County, the Mabel and Ellsworth Charitable Simmons Foundation, the Saunders Foundation, the Spurlino Foundation, and United Way of Central Florida. To volunteer, reconnect, donate, or join, visit http:\/\/www.gswcf.org<\/a> or call 800-881-GIRL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Saturday, June 12, 40 Girl Scouts in west-central Florida will be honored for the dedication they put into earning their Girl Scout Gold Award – the highest and most… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[495],"class_list":["post-11918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-girl-scouts-highest-honor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}