Scottsdale and Paradise Valley teens were among 22 local girls bestowed the highest honor of receiving the Gold Award from the Girl Scouts–Arizona Cactus-Pine Council.

Girl Scouts–Arizona Cactus-Pine Council (GSACPC) has award its most prestigious honor, the Gold Award, to the Girl Scouts who earned the award by identifying and tackling issues with sustainable solutions and making changes in their communities and abroad with their Gold Award projects.

This award recognizes Girl Scouts in grades 9-12 “who take action in their communities by tackling an issue they are passionate about and developing sustainable solutions to local, national, and global challenges,” according to a press release.

“This year’s Gold Award honorees exemplify fantastic leadership and civic engagement by dedicating themselves to addressing important causes and taking action to make the world a better place,” said Christina Spicer, co-CEO of GSACPC in a prepared statement. “As a nationally recognized symbol of leadership, the Gold Award is a truly remarkable achievement.”

Examples of 2023 Gold Award Girl Scouts and their projects:

• Misha Ghafouri of Paradise Valley
  Iranian Youth Connections
  A first-generation Iranian American, Misha wanted a welcoming space for Iranian American youth to connect with one another and learn from Iranian leaders, which inspired her Gold Award project, Iranian Youth Connections. This online platform is dedicated to creating a welcoming space for Iranian youth to connect, learn more about Iranian culture, and gain skills to become successful leaders in the community. To ensure her project’s success and sustainability, she created a website and partnered with the Iranian American Society of Arizona to provide mentorship and programs for Iranian youth. She was also invited to speak at their annual gala and held a booth at the annual Persian New Year Festival with an audience of 5,000 people. Her Gold Award project helped her gain confidence and professional networking skills to share her cultural heritage. The Girl Scout of 14 years plans to continue to advocate for Iranian Americans at a locally and globally.
• Ella Hamer of Scottsdale
  
  Girl Scouts In STEM
  For her Gold Award project, “Girl Scouts in STEM,” Ella Hamer aimed to combat the underrepresentation of women in STEM careers, especially engineering. Hamer collaborated with Pima Neighborhood Day Camp to provide STEM lessons, activities and a presentation about women in STEM for girls in kindergarten through sixth grade. She held lessons for girls with a focus on engineering principles like hands-on learning, problem-solving and the Engineering Design Process with educational workshops to set girls up for academic success and to consider a future career in science or engineering. Survey results from participants before and after the project revealed an overall 67% increase in understanding, with the most effective classes covering 3D printing and Newtonian Physics. A graduate of BASIS Scottsdale, her project’s mission will continue as Pima Neighborhood Day Camp, which offers girls opportunities to learn STEM during the summer.
• Bailey Iannone of Scottsdale
  Start Something Positive
  To create a welcoming and loving Girl Scout experience for all, Bailey led a troop of girls with disabilities for two years and filmed a video series that taught how to facilitate meetings with all girls. She shared tips on how to foster meaningful friendships to help leaders and fellow Girl Scout Sisters form inclusive troops, interviewed leaders, families, and girls to identify their needs and help find solutions to make programs, troop meetings and activities accessible for everyone. Through her Gold Award project, she learned about the importance of giving back to the community by advocating and taking action to support Girl Scouts with disabilities. A Girl Scout of 13 years, she’s learned how to trust her strength, and take adventures with courage and positivity. She plans to attend Arizona State University as a computer science major.

This year’s Gold Award winners confronted issues faced by their communities by establishing designated mental health spaces for students on high school campuses, fighting food insecurity in Indigenous communities, building the first dog park located in a national park, designing inspirational campus murals with world-renowned artists, collecting bikes and helmets for children of military families, creating online resource platforms for youth and more, according to Mary Mitchell, co-CEO of GSACPC in the release.

Recipients of the Gold Award, who establish themselves as community leaders, can take advantage of scholarships, enlist at a higher pay grade in the military, distinguish themselves among the competition in college admissions, and when entering the workforce, the release noted.