Gold Award Spotlight: Being a Catalyst for Hope and Transformation

Maya, a Girl Scout Ambassador from Chesapeake, has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor and achievement a girl can earn in Girl Scouting. Maya has been a Girl Scout for 12 years and is a junior at Oscar Smith High School.

For her project, Maya refurbished four rooms in the women’s dormitory at Judeo Christian Outreach Center (JCOC) in Virginia Beach. Maya cleaned each room, added a fresh coat of paint and replaced rugs, curtains, décor and bedding in the rooms. Maya also created a flier to raise awareness about homelessness and made a Facebook page to update supporters as she worked on her project.

“Homelessness is an issue across the United States,” Maya said. “Through my project, I wanted to create a better living environment for the women who stay at the JCOC.”

In order to make sure that her project is sustainable, Maya arranged for the Virginia Beach Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority to monitor the condition of the rooms that she renovated at the JCOC and update them as needed.

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 Maya 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.