Roslyn Heights resident Aryana Patel is one of the 51 local Girl Scouts who earned the 2024 Girl Scout Gold Award. To become a Girl Scout Gold Award class member, the Girl Scouts must positively impact their community by addressing causes they care about.
“Every Girl Scout who earned their Gold Award this year demonstrated remarkable resilience, dedication, and passion in developing and implementing a plan to tackle a societal challenge,” CEO of Girl Scouts of Nassau County Rande Bynum said. “We are immensely proud and impressed by each one of them for achieving their goals and making a lasting impact on their communities. Their commitment is undeniable, and their efforts have positively affected countless lives.”
The girls begin their Gold Award journey by identifying a civic or social issue that is important to them.
“This year, our Girl Scouts addressed critical issues such as environmental justice and sustainability, mental and emotional health, gender equality in sports, and more. We applaud each of them for their significant contributions,” Bynum said.
The Girl Scout then builds a team to support her project, with a mission to impact her community positively.
The Gold Award projects are organized to continue functioning after the award is earned. This can be done by establishing nonprofit organizations, publishing books to be added to school library collections, implementing classroom lessons to be taught for years to come, or other initiatives to create lasting change.
Patel’s Gold Award mission is to raise awareness about life-threatening food allergies, an issue close to her heart because her brother was diagnosed with severe allergies.
She collaborated with the assistant principal of her high school to design and post allergy alert sheets on each classroom door. Patel’s project helps ease worries for students with allergies by making their peers aware of certain foods that cannot be consumed there.
In addition, Patel created a website and presentation that shared information about the most common food and non-food allergies according to the FDA, a helpful list of allergy-safe food brands, and information on how to respond when an allergic reaction occurs. Her materials and slideshow have been added to the annual health curriculum at her high school.
Through the process, Gold Award Girl Scouts learn resourcefulness, tenacity, and decision-making skills, giving them an edge personally and professionally.
According to research from the Girl Scouts of Nassau County, Gold Award Girl Scouts are more likely to fill leadership roles at work and in their personal lives and are more civically engaged than their non-Girl Scout peers.
Girls in grades K-12 can begin their Girl Scout journey at any age. To join or volunteer, visit www.gsnc.org/join.
