Earning one of the Girl Scouts’ highest awards challenges girls to be their best and develop, plan, and implement a Take Action project.
Silver Award Girl Scouts are making the world a better place. The Silver Award is the highest honor a Girl Scout Cadette (sixth through eighth grade) can earn and requires a minimum of 50 hours to complete.
Nationwide, approximately 10% of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Girl Scout Silver Award. In membership year 2023, nine Sandy Run Girl Scouts earned the Silver Award. All of the Silver Award Girl Scouts will be honored at an upcoming council-wide ceremony this spring.
Paige Gould, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 2035, earned her Silver Award by completing a project benefitting Family Promise of Lower Bucks, whose mission is to mobilize collaboration within the local community in addressing the needs of homeless families with children.
Paige built a vegetable garden at the Manse House in Langhorne. She organized donations from local businesses, researched garden beds, and met with a Yardley gardener for information and seed sharing opportunities. Paige checked sun patterns at the location to determine the best placement for her garden.
Paige constructed garden beds and then transferred them to the garden site, including an enclosure to keep unwanted critters out. She started plants from seeds, and then tended to the seeds by watering and ensuring they received the proper daily sunlight. Once the vegetable plants were established, Paige transferred and planted them in the garden. She visited the garden weekly to water and ensure proper growth patterns.
Paige hopes that her garden will provide the patrons of Manse House with fresh vegetables to harvest every year.
Madelynn DiLeonardo, a ninth-grader at Conwell-Egan Catholic High School and a member of Troop 2035, earned the Silver Award by completing a project benefitting Pennridge FISH.
Pennridge FISH is an organization dedicated to alleviating hunger, poverty, and homelessness in the Pennridge School District by providing low-income households with food, clothing, and emergency financial assistance. Maddie made 20 no-sew blankets and 25 pillows and donated them to the patrons of Pennridge FISH. Her hope is that her project will lead to fewer cold people on the streets this winter.
Ora Weinstein, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 266, earned the Silver Award by completing a project supporting students at the Christina Seix Academy. Christina Seix Academy is a school that provides an environment for children from low-income communities to academically thrive in.
Ora designed and built a Gaga pit for the middle school students, who had very little outdoor play equipment. After talking with people from the community to ensure that the pit was going to meet their expectations, the next step was to gather materials. Local hardware stores and multiple people made Ora’s project possible by donating the needed materials.
Ora and her team cut and stained eight wood panels, which she took to the Academy. She and her team then cleared the site and used a variety of power tools to assemble the wood panels into the pit. It is Ora’s hope that the older students at the Academy will use the Gaga pit to play for years to come.
Anastasia (Ana) Cheeseman, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21648, earned her Silver Award by completing a project supporting Aark Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Chalfont.
Ana, who is an animal lover wanted to help wild animals. She worked closely with Mr. Brewster, an education director at Aark, and identified a need for cozy hammocks, houses, and tunnels for rehabilitation of flying squirrels during colder weather. With appropriate materials and fabric, Ana and her teammates made 11 hammocks, 14 houses, and 12 tunnels for native flying squirrels’ rehabilitation.
It is Ana’s hope that the cozy hammocks, houses, and tunnels that she made will be used and reused by Aark for years to come.
Aleksandra (Sasha) Cheeseman, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21648, earned her Silver Award by completing a project benefiting the William Penn Middle School in Lower Makefield Township.
Sasha built a pollinator rain garden for the courtyard of the school. A lot of planning went into preparing the best rain garden for the location, including research and soil testing. With the help of the Sustainability Coordinator at Pennsbury School District, Mr. Garry Sanderson, Sasha and her team collected materials and supplies and edged around the planned gardening space.
They removed rocks, roots, excess dirt, and debris from the planting area, tilled the soil and added new soil, fertilizer, and minerals that were best for the garden. With the help of Master Gardener Annie Milionis, Sasha planted native plants and she her team topped off the garden with an even layer of mulch and painted river rocks with encouraging words. She hopes that the pollinator rain garden will attract wildlife and be used as an educational open classroom at the school.
Clare Jordan, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21648, earned her Silver Award by completing a project benefiting Impact Services, an organization that helps homeless veterans find a place to live and also provides them with services and items to live a better life.
Clare taught her team how to make t-shirt tote bags and no-sew blankets. They tie-died 30 large t-shirts and made 20 of the t-shirts into no-sew t-shirt bags. Clare also purchased fleece material and made 20 6’x6’ no-sew blankets.
She made cards for all of the people receiving a blanket and put them in the t-shirt bags with the blankets. Clare then delivered them all to Impact Services in Philadelphia to hand out to the veterans. Clare hopes that the employees at Impact Services are able to enjoy the smiles on veterans’ faces when they receive her blankets.
Anna Chiang, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21648, earned her Silver Award by completing a project benefiting children at HomeFront, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness in the area.
Anna created guided writing journals for children in the “Joys, Hopes, and Dreams” program at HomeFront. With assistance from writers in her community, Anna created writing prompts for the journals.
In addition, she collected writing implements and created fabric book covers for each of the journals. It is Anna’s hope that through using the journals, the children in the program will be more confident and comfortable with writing in the future.
Julia Fugowski, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21648, earned her Silver Award by completing a project benefitting the Morrisville Senior Center.
Julia, who has always wanted to be a teacher, combined her passion for teaching and art and selected two pictures, created lesson plans, made prototypes, and taught seniors at the Center how to paint a portrait of a flower and a landscape scene over two weeks.
In this endeavor, Julia helped her community grow closer together while discovering new talents. While carrying out the project, she met a number of wonderful women who convinced her to return and teach another painting session. Julia hopes that sharing her passion with the seniors encourages them to continue painting.
Amelie Pugliese, a ninth-grader at Pennsbury High School and a member of Troop 21648, earned her Silver Award by completing a project benefiting her town, Yardley Borough.
Amelie created a website, yardleyhistory.com, researching historic locations including Lake Afton, The Old Library, and Saint Andrews Cemetery. The website contains information about these historic locales so that others in the community can learn about the Borough.
She continues to research other historic places in the Borough and is updating the website as more information is obtained. Additionally, Amelie created a sign with QR codes that she installed at a store, Krysset, centrally located in the Borough, so that those who enter the store can scan the code and learn more about the Borough.