Boulder teen earns Gold Award, the highest award in Girl Scouts

This spring, a teen from Boulder is receiving the Gold Award, the highest award in Girl Scouts. Kaitlin Jaros has demonstrated exceptional commitment to taking action to make the world a better place through her community service.

“Girl Scouts of Colorado serves 30,000 girls, and it’s quite an accomplishment to be one of only 72 girls in the state this year to earn this distinguished award,” said Stephanie Foote, interim president and CEO of Girl Scouts of Colorado. “These girls are leaders among their peers, showing the world that girls can do anything and make a difference.”

Kaitlin Jaros

Holy Family High School

“Teens and Healthy Choices”

“For my Gold Award, I created a program to address the issue of healthy living for teenagers with busy lifestyles. My project was targeted toward middle school students so they could develop healthy habits that would carry into their future. After conducting surveys at three middle schools, I was able to gather more information on what the students ate, how much sleep they got and what they did to stay active. I also visited the schools and gave a presentation about healthy living. Afterward, I passed out bags of donated food, water bottles and healthy snacks.”

The Gold Award culminates with a project led by one young woman of high school age who builds a purpose-based team to work with the larger community to meet a need. The focus of a Girl Scouts’ Gold Award project is identifying a community issue that she is passionate about, researching the issue, developing a plan to address the issue in cooperation with her team and community members, establishing a global connection with others and providing sustainability for the project. Of the skills learned through Girl Scouts’ Highest Awards, leadership, organization and critical thinking are the fundamentals of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience.

Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. Girl Scouts of Colorado makes it easy, meaningful and fun for girls and volunteers to grow as leaders. We provide a safe place for girls to explore their world – from science, technology and the environment to healthy living, anti-bullying and financial literacy. For 100 years, Girl Scouting has been helping each girl develop her personal leadership skills and make friends that last a lifetime. Girl Scouts is also a great place to enhance job skills and give back to your community as an adult volunteer. In fact, we serve 30,000 girl members and 9,000 adult volunteers across Colorado! New to Girl Scouts are the flexible pathways for participation for both girls and adult volunteers. Come learn more about how you can be part of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience during our historic Year of the Girl 100th anniversary in 2012 by visiting girlscoutsofcolorado.org, calling 1-877-404-5708 or emailing inquiry@gscolorado.org.

# # #

Girl Scouts of Colorado

1-877-404-5708

girlscoutsofcolorado.org

Twitter (twitter.com/gscolo) -or- Facebook (facebook.com/girlscoutsofcolorado)

Contact: Amanda Kalina, 303-607-4844

amanda.kalina@gscolorado.org