Szabo and Gorker earn Silver Awards
Berkeley Heights Girl Scout Troop 40950
Girl Scouts are dedicated to making a lasting difference in their communities and strengthening their leadership skills. Girl Scouting’s highest awards—the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards—are a scout’s chance to make a lasting difference in the world. Cecelia Szabo and Emerson Gorker, Berkeley Heights Girl Scouts from Troop 40950, recently earned the Girl Scout Silver Award, the highest recognition for achievement in Girl Scouting for Cadette level scouts. To earn this award, they individually dedicated over 50 hours to their projects.
For Cecelia’s Silver Award project, she created Children’s Activity Theater Kits (CAT KITs) to providea free and flexible option for younger children to explore the performing arts. Each CAT Kit includes a story book, color coded scripts that adapt the story book to a play, props to help put on a play, a parent letter to guide parents on how they can use the kit with their child(ren), and an activity card with warms ups and additional theater games/activities. The kits provide structure for parents who might not be used to or comfortable with dramatic arts but also allow for flexibility so they can be used in various ways for those who want the freedom to be creative. The kits are available to check out from the Berkeley Heights Library.
When asked about what she learned from doing the project, Cecelia stated, “One of the great things I learned is that kids do not need to be involved in a full show or acting class to experience the fun and benefits of acting. The kids who have used the kits had a positive experience and expressed interest in doing more acting. Working on my Silver Award also helped me improve my time management, flexibility, planning, and problem solving skills.” She went on to say, “I hope the kits are enjoyed by children for years to come and give young kids the chance to experience some of the benefits of performing arts.”
For their Silver Award project, Emerson chose to address the mistreatment of small mammal pets and misinformation about what caring for small mammal pets really requires. To broadly share accurate information to people caring for or considering getting a small mammal pet, Emerson conducted in-depth research and then created a comprehensive but easy to navigate website on how to care for hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, and rats. In addition to educating pet store employees about the website and care guidance, flyers advertising the website and with a QR code to easily access it were hung in multiple pet stores so people looking to purchase small mammal pets could access the resource.
In reflecting on the experience, Emerson noted, “I learned how to build a website, how to make a brand attractive with an interesting name so people would be inclined to actually use the site, how to research projects, how to talk to management and have the confidence to do that, and how small mammal pets need to be cared for.” When asked about their hope for the website, Emerson responded, “Many people want to treat small pets right, but do not know how to, so I hope that my website makes small pet care easier to learn and leads to many more happy pets.” To check out the Care 4 Your Critters website, visit: care4yourcritters.wixsite.com/c4yc
Both projects hope to have a lasting impact on the community. Congratulations to Cecelia and Emerson for their hard work and accomplishments!
Courtesy photos
