Friday, August 5, 2016

Gold Award Spotlight: Second Bloom

Linda McGowan, a Virginia Beach Girl Scout, has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor and achievement a girl can earn in Girl Scouting.

For her project, Linda started a program to deliver flower arrangements to patients undergoing cancer treatment at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital. She collected flowers that had been used at weddings, funerals and other events and recycled them into new flower arrangements that she delivered to the patients each month.

“I did this project in honor of my great grandfather who was a long-term hospital patient and always expressed how he loved kind gestures like flowers, cards and visits,” Linda said. “Through my project, I was able to use flowers that would normally be discarded after their first intended use to uplift cancer patients and brighten their room.”

Linda has arranged for a group of women in her community to continue her project when she leaves for college. They will continue to make flower arrangements and deliver them to the hospital on a monthly basis.

The Gold Award requires girls to identify an issue in the community and carry out a Take Action project to address the matter through leadership work. Nationwide, less than six percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award, which adds Linda to an elite group of female leaders across the country with the honor. In 2016, Girl Scouts are celebrating 100 years of girls changing the world during the centennial year of the Girl Scout Gold Award.