When most people hear the words “Girl Scouts,” they think of the brownies selling cookies around the neighborhood and badges added to their brown lanyards. Most girls participate when they’re younger, but few continue long enough to see what the program really offers.  The cookies are only the surface level of Girl Scouts.“I feel like when people think of scouting, they think of camping, and learning how to tie knots, and canoeing, but I think Girl Scouts is really based around entrepreneurship and becoming your own person in the modern world, and learning the value of a good business and business tactics,” said junior Girl Scout Quinn Clotman.  Most people don’t realize it, but Girl Scouts is a platform for young women around the United States to get involved and make a deeper impact on society and their communities.

For freshman Lylah Morris, a Girl Scout of seven years, she is actively pursuing the Gold Award. The Gold Award is the highest achievement in Girl Scouts and takes years of commitment, true interest in an issue in your community and a way to solve it, and a minimum of 80 hours of work on your project. The Gold Award is recognized nationally and is incredibly prestigious: it shows leadership, long-term commitment, and builds real-world skills. It can bring scholarships for college and even has military benefits for those enlisting in the military, such as higher entry rank.  

There are two different prerequisite paths a scout can take to be eligible for the Gold Award. Either a scout can do two journeys or earn the Bronze and Silver Awards. Lylah had to earn both her silver and bronze awards now that she can start her project for Gold. For her bronze award, she spent every weekend of her summer at food drives. Her silver award was starting the girls in STEM club at SCH. For her Gold Award, she is interested in starting an annual STEM career fair for girls interested in a STEM-related job. “It (Girl Scouts) gives me encouragement to know that I can accomplish anything I want to do. It gives me the opportunity to make an impact on my community and the places around me.” Morris said when talking about how Girl Scouts has inspired her.

Quinn Clotman made two journeys leading up to her Gold Award. For Quinn, her Gold Award is called the Forever Green Project. It is centered around planting trees in urban Philadelphia in areas where there isn’t a lot of tree coverage. Clotman said, “The sun hits the populations there really hard and the temperature difference is really stark. And so you have a lot more health issues and health disparities in those neighborhoods.” Clotman’s project combines her passion for the environment and combatting climate change with helping other communities’ lifestyles and health. 

Even though Girl Scouts has built a reputation through its neighborhood cookie sellers, for passionate and dedicated scouts like Morris and Clotman, it is far more than badges and the number of boxes needed to sell. It teaches leadership and initiative for girls around the nation and opens doors and rare opportunities. Although its impact is hard to see at first glance, it shapes who the scouts become, beyond their time in a badge-clad vest.