About Me

My name is Alani Wiist.  

I am a recent graduate of Murray High School in Utah where I played the trumpet for 3 years in the Murray High School Marching Band, and was the Drum Major my Senior Year of High School.  I also played the trumpet in my school's Symphonic, Philharmonic, and Jazz Bands during High School.  I have taken my love for Marching and Music with me to the University of Utah, where I now march for the Pride of Utah: The Marching Utes! 

I am a Girl Scout of 13 years.  I always loved financial and cooking badges. My favorite memories with my Troop were our summer daycamps.  I loved visiting the Farmer's Market, Water/Outdoor Play Days, and visiting a local Goat Farm.  I've taken my love of finance to the U with me, and am majoring in both Business and Music. 

I began Girl Scouts as a Kindergarten aged Daisy, at 5 years old, in 2011, and graduated, in 2024, as a thirteen year, and fourth generation Girl Scout.  In 4th grade I, along with my Troop of 6 other Junior Girl Scouts, earned the Bronze Award for our Little Free Library Project.  At the end of 8th grade, I, along with my project teammate, Zoey, earned my Silver Awards, for our Project which focused on Destigmatizing Addiction.  We spent several months making weekly visits to a local recovery center where we met with women of all backgrounds, who were part of this particular recovery program. We listened to and recorded their stories, and taught them how to knit and make jewelry.  We shared tears, meals, and laughter together.  We completed this project with a website to share the stories we'd collected.

At the award ceremony for my Bronze Award, I committed in my mind to achieving my Gold Award.  And that is where this project was born.  If there's something I love almost as much as Music, it's fiber arts.  I have been a knitter since my Grannie taught me at the age of 5, and in the past few years, I've taught myself crochet.  The Gold Award asks that we consider a systemic issue and work to create a solution by directing our own team. 

You'll learn more about my project in the About Project page, but for now I'll say that along with being a musician, a fiber arts enthusiast, a Girl Scout, a Marcher, a former Spartan, and a current Ute, I was also, for most of my life, a homeschooler.  When I began attending public school for the first time, at the age of 15, in the Fall of 2021, I began recognizing patterns among my peers and within myself, having to do with social and school induced anxieties (post 2020 school year).  I noticed that I was turning to crochet as a means of grounding, mindfulness, and getting recentered.  

So when it came time to settle on a Gold Project, I thought about what was going on around me, and how I might possibly share this tool I'd learned, with not only my peers, but younger children, to help them with another tool in their emotional tool kit.  And UNWIND was born.  

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About this Project

This Project is the workings of a Girl Scout Gold Award.  For those unaware of what a Gold Award is, it is an 80-100 Individual Girl Scout Project that focuses on a community issue and works to solve its root cause. The Girl Scout is asked to find an Advisor, a set of team members, and to lead the project and the team.  She is also asked to create a project that is sustainable for a number of years into the future.  My project's community issue focuses on School-Induced Anxieties and how to stay mindful, present, and grounded, when presented with these stresses.  For most of my life, until the age of 15/Sophomore year in high school, I was schooled at home, In the Fall of 2021, I made a decision to move to Public School in order to graduate with the friends I'd made through the Music Department of my high school through my involvement in Marching and Symphonic Band classes.  Upon entry into the Public School System, I began to pretty immediately realize the stre...
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Mindfulness Resources

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 You'll see the following resource again in the "Make Your Own Kit" page, but here are some suggested ways to stay mindful and present as a practice, while you engage in crochet: Think about what mindfulness means to you Keep your mind focused on the present Let your worries go and focus on the steps There are 4 main movements in crochet, use these movements to. . . Think of 4 positive words/affirmations about  Yourself~Your World~Indoors~Outdoors~Family~Things You Love~ What you aspire to/want to be~Gratitudes~Things you want to let go of~Nature~ You can write a silly or special poem, song, or create a rhyme My Mindfulness Liaison was helpful in steering me towards a great resource for a specific practice in mindfulness which is within the DBT or Dialectal Behavior Therapy model.  I am providing a graphic here for simplicity, but feel free to look into DBT/Dialectical Behavior Therapy and research any number of websites for resources and information.  Credit for thi...
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