While working together, we

learn essential skills like leadership, teamwork, cooperation, planning,

and flexibility that will prove important in interaction with others and

in our future careers. As the scouts take over leadership roles in the

troop, they learn the qualities of a good leader as well as a bad one.

In addition to management skills,

we learn to serve others in scouts and our community. Service to others

is the purpose of the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor a scout

can receive.

The Gold Award, roughly equivalent

to a Boy Scout Eagle, proves that a girl has the skill and devotion necessary

to conceive, plan, arrange, execute, and report a complex project from

start to finish. The project should benefit others and must take the scout

a minimum of 50 hours to complete, though many take much longer.

Despite the difficulty of earning

a Gold Award, recipients always say it was worth it, since such an honor

places the girl above her peers, makes her eligible for scholarships and

grants, and gives her an advantage in applying for her career of choice.

So stick with it, girls. Reach

for your dreams: Girl Scouts can help you get there.

Rebecca Ackman

Girl Scout Troop 368