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 stresses and anxieties my friends were carrying, which were associated with simply being back in a physical building after a year of an online and hybrid schooling model.  They also seemed to be struggling with the workload of school.  Even I, having not experienced public school until this time, began experiencing some of the same feelings.  I found that I often sought out knitting and later taught myself crochet, as a means of coming back to center, grounding myself, and a tool for mindfulness to bring me back to the present, when my mind would wander and focus on so many different timelines, deadlines, and worries. 

When it came to my Gold Award and I considered an issue that seemsd to be affecting my community and the country at large, I decided offering children a tool, like crochet, to help them refocus and stay present, in a post-pandemic work, but also in a highly digitized world, was where I wanted to spend my time, focus, and energy, during my Gold Award Project. 

I decided to work with kids to find the root cause of these anxieties. Some kids may already experience anxieties surrounding school work, and some may not; this project aims not only to reduce stress for children now but also to give children healthy tools to cope with stress as they move into jJunior high, High School, and beyond, where a variety of anxieties are more present in their lives.

In order to create change most effectively within my own community, I decided to focus my project on the children in my own school district, which includes 10 schools: 7 elementary, 2 Jr. high, and 1 high school. Then I considered the age that could use this tool most effectively as early intervention and chose to work primarily with just the 7 elementary schools.  There were moments I didn't know if this project would get off the ground.  There were times when I felt like I was at an impass with being able to find the right people to communicate with at the Elementary School level.  Thankfully, as part of the Gold Award, we choose an advisor.  An incredible local Girl Scout Leader and someone familiar with the District, because of her long-time work there, Paige, stepped up to be my advisor.  She was always there to connect me to the right people to help me get my foot in the door to present my project and ultimately have my project approved within the District, in a way that I hadn't even considered it might be used. 

First I'd hoped to teach more children in my district directly through the schools, but timing, and regulations, didn't allow for this.  Thankfully I was able to shift my focus to teaching summer daycamps which helped me better understand holes in my project, plan, and teaching methods and to create better resources. Next, I attempted to meet with Social Workers in the schools in my district, but couldn't get to everyone in time, during the Spring Semester, and had a short timeline to meet with them in the Fall.  Again, my project advisor connected me with the right person, I was able to get my project approved, connect with and present to all of the Social Workers in the District, and I got an even bigger and better surprise than I'd imagined.  The Murray School District has piloted a program where each school in the district has a quiet room, zen den, and one school even has an active room right next door to their calm-down space.  I learned from my first meeting in the Spring that there was already an ideal space for children to come and use tools for grounding and mindfulness moments, as needed, throughout their school days.  As I spoke with each of the Social Workers, I learned more and more about this resource.  Their feedback and response helped me to work with them to make plans on how to best utilize my project and every single one was enthusiastic about the opportunity to have yet another resource and tool to use in their Calm Spaces.  

To finalize my project, I donated kits to each of the Elementary Schools.  You'll find the elements of the kits and how to build your own for personal use or to distribute in your area, in my post about the kit contents.  The kits included 5 small kits with a booklet, a hook, a small ball of yarn, all placed in a bin with some extra yarn.  

The last part of the Girl Scout Project is sustainability. As you'll see on my Thank You Page, I had a TON of community partners.  One of those partners is the social workers themselves, being committed to sustaining the project by distributing the QR code that brings kids to this page, learning to use the kits, and even learning crochet through this site, themselves. A final portion of the sustainability is making sure that the yarn never dries up. For this part of the project I have the support of the Murray School District PTAs, who have committed to yarn drives for a number of years, moving forward. 

I am excited to see and hear how this project is utilized within my District, and how it benefits the children in my community.  I hope to see it take shape in other communities in Utah and across the Country as well.