Future Woman of Distinction

Brianna is a Juliette Ambassador Girl Scout in Queens, has been a Girl Scout for 11 years. Brianna is a Bronze, Silver, and Gold Award recipient. She recently earned her Gold Award by completing a Take Action Project on spreading awareness on breast health in teens. She also won the GS Carmen Dubroc Scholarship and first place award for the STEM track in the 2020 Girl Scout Leadership Institute. She plays varsity volleyball and is a member of the theater club, TV studio, newspaper, student council, and National Honors Society at St Agnes Academic HS in College Point. Additionally, Brianna is very involved in community service in her school. She was a member of the Junior Leadership Council (JLC) at Northwell Health where she visited hospitals, cooked for the Ronald McDonald House, and worked with health care professionals. As a member of the JLC, Brianna also completed a capstone project involving spreading awareness for mental illnesses in teens. She aspires to be a nurse practitioner and is currently applying to nursing programs in various colleges. During her spare time, Brianna enjoys drawing, skiing, biking, hiking, swimming, kayaking, and Taekwondo.

I began as a Girl Scout 12 years ago in the 1st grade as a Brownie along with my five other original troop members. We are now Ambassadors in our senior year of high school. 

As a troop, we have shared our time together conducting STEM experiments; researching powerful women; advocating for important causes; raising funds for fellow Girl Scouts impacted by Hurricane Sandy here in NYC and before that the devastating tsunami in Japan; and singing campfire songs at Camp Kaufmann.

As a troop, our Bronze Award was earned for cleaning up a neglected lot and painting an old swimming pool to enable a town on Long Island to reclaim the space as a playground for the community. My Silver Award was earned after two years of work with the NYC Office of Emergency Management on the Ready Girl preparedness campaign and then coordinating a visit by Ready Girl to the younger grades at my school. The Gold Award is an individual achievement, but in the spirit of “all for one and one for all,” my five sister scouts and I each took on a specific role under one umbrella theme. Our thesis was that there could be another way to reach more girls in NYC for whom the traditional troop model doesn’t fit. Inspired by Troop 6000, we spent three academic years bringing GS into an after-school program and working with at-risk girls ages 7-11 every week. For my individual part, I oversaw and coordinated all the administrative and logistical aspects of running and documenting a new program supporting my other troop members, who each were responsible for a different core theme including STEM, Art, Environmental Science, Nutrition, and Sports. While each responsibility area was carried out individually, it was the collective parts that provided a full program curriculum over a sustained period of time.

From my role and experience working on my Gold Award project, I realized many of my organizational strengths and interests. As a result, I am now applying to colleges and universities with strong undergraduate business programs. Girl Scouts, in this way, has helped me learn about myself and apply it confidently in  other aspects of my student career.

Hello! My name is Kelly and I’m currently a senior in High School. I’ve been a Girl Scout for the past 10 years as a part of Troop 4570 located in Flushing, Queens. Girl Scouts has always played a huge role in my life, not only by providing me the opportunities to explore new interests and give back to my community, but by also helping me find my voice and learn more about myself than I ever thought was possible. Through scouting, I’ve rediscovered my Chinese heritage through traditional dances and Chinese yo-yo performances, all the while learning what it truly takes to be an advocate for my community through the Leadership Institute, Powered by Girl Scouts of Greater New York. As a former Patrol Leader, and now, a Senior Patrol Leader for my troop, I’m able to lead and help guide the very same community that nurtured and inspired me when I was younger. For my Gold Award project, I’m currently working on bringing to life the stories of the everyday people whose lives have been changed by COVID-19 through art, narratives, and voices, all of which will hopefully expose the genuine, yet devastating impacts that this pandemic has had on the lives of people in this community. In the future, I plan to pursue a career in psychology, hopefully being able to help children and teens who suffer from mental health disorders. As someone who does, I want to help those who don’t always have someone to be there for them. Girl Scouts will forever be the place where I’ve met some of the most incredible people, all of whom continuously push and inspire me to be the very best I can be.

I joined Girl Scouts as a Daisy 13 years ago, and I am now an Ambassador Girl Scout from Queens. I remember my troop’s biweekly meetings, working with our parish on holiday service projects, and rope climbing at Camp Kaufmann, but now reflecting on my Girl Scouting experience, I realize it has taught me many valuable skills, such as leadership, confidence, and communication, that have allowed me to pursue my passions.

My troop and I earned our Bronze Award by implementing a recycling system at our school. I also earned my Silver Award by working with a fellow Girl Scout to renovate our school’s multipurpose room, which is widely used by all members of the community, including our troop. This past summer, I assisted in leading my school network’s 3DNYC: Understanding Diversity & Difference through Dialogue Network Summer Service Project. It ended up being virtual, but was still an amazing experience. Not only did this program allow me to practice my leadership and facilitation skills, but it also ignited my sense of activism and passion for social justice. I was so inspired that I decided for that to be the focus of my Girl Scout Gold Award, which aims to educate young teens and Girl Scouts about social justice issues (i.e. immigration, racial inequality, LGBTQ+ rights, etc.) using a communication tool called dialogue.

Additionally, I participated in the Leadership Institute’s Business and Entrepreneurship Track, creating a business to help women in Mali sell their art for profit and develop their own businesses. This led to an internship at the Girl Scout of Greater New York’s Philanthropy Department, where I researched possible donors for the 2019 Women of Distinction Breakfast, helping to raise over $500,000, which funded the Council’s leadership development programs for over 32,000 young girls in the five boroughs.

Aside from Girl Scouting, I am the Editor-In-Chief of my school newspaper, a peer leader for a group of ninth grade students, and am on the Varsity Basketball, Cross Country, and Outdoor Track and Field teams. I also love studying Mandarin and throwing on the wheel in ceramics. As a senior in high school, I plan to major in business marketing in college and eventually pursue a career in business.