What is the Gold Award?
The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest and most prestigious award in Girl Scouting. To earn her Gold Award, a Girl Scout needs to identify a global issue that directly impacts her community. She then can build her support team and put together an action plan to address that issue. Her project must be a minimum of 80 service hours, and its impact must be measurable and sustainable. As of 2016, the organization reported that approximately one million Girl Scouts have earned the Gold Award or its equivalent.
As the project typically takes 1-2 years to complete, Girls are encouraged to select issues that are personal to them or that relate to a topic they are passionate about. My project focused on getting local gardeners to donate their leftover product to my local food bank and sharing farm-fresh recipes with the users of the food bank. This idea stemmed from my the excess produce from my dad’s garden that we had to throw away and my love of incorporating those fresh fruits and veggies into meals.
What is the History?
The concept of the Gold Award was introduced four years after Girl Scouts was founded in 1912.
The Golden Eaglet insignia was the highest honor from 1916 to 1939. The requirements changed overtime but involved earning 14 of 17 merit badges and later earning the “Medal of Merit.” According to Juliette Gordon Low, a Golden Eaglet recipient exemplified character, health, handicraft, happiness and service.
The Curved Bar Award was the highest honor from 1940 to 1963. I have read conflicting information about this, but my understanding is that in 1938 the Golden Eaglet’s name was changed to “First Class” and a higher award was introduced for Scouts who already earned First Class and were preparing to bridge into Senior Girl Scouts. The Curved Bar was originally just an embroidered patch, due to the metal shortage during World War II. In 1947 a metal pin was introduced.
First Class was the highest honor from 1963 to 1980. The Curved Bar was discontinued in 1963 and First Class re-emerged as the highest award. To earn first class, the Scout had to earn an assortment of badges and address four to seven of 12 challenges. These were the Challenges of Dependability, Active Citizenship, Emergency Preparedness, the Girl Scout Promise, Arts, Community Action, the Environment, International Understanding, Knowing Myself, the Out-of-Doors, my Heritage and Today’s World.
Since 1980, the Gold Award has been the highest honor.
What are the current prerequisites? What is the process?
If you haven’t already gathered it, earning the Gold Award is a long process. Before proposing a take action project to the Gold Award council, a Scout has to meet 3 requirements.
She must be in high school.
She must be a registered Girl Scout and ranked as a Senior or Ambassador.
She must have completed two Senior or Ambassador-level Journeys, or be a Silver Award recipient and completed one Journey.
Once she has her prerequisites, a Scout may submit a proposal and get it approved by her council. After that, she is matched with a mentor who helps her plan and complete her project. Finally, she submits a final report and completes an interview after which she will have officially earned her award. Then she can schedule her pinning ceremony and attend an annual statewide ceremony for her council where she will receive a packet of certificates and memorabilia.
Why should a Girl Scout earn the Gold Award?
It will distinguish her from others in the college application process. In 2016, Girl Scouts of the USA reported that fewer than six percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award each year.
It will give her scholarship opportunities. Girl Scouts offers scholarships for Gold Award recipients. Additionally, there are local scholarships that will recognize the leadership and service work done in the Gold Award process. Colleges are also likely to recognize the Gold Award honor when offering merit-based financial aid. I received my financial aid package from Simmons before completing my Gold Award. After receiving the honor, I appealed to Student Financial Services and they offered me additional scholarship money.
It will allow her to enter the U.S. Armed Forces at one rank higher. This is similar to the impact of the Boy Scout Eagle Scout honor.
It gives her leadership skills. Completing this honor forces young women to overcome difficult obstacles, work with organizations, and communicate with others. These are skills that not all adults have the opportunity to learn.
For more information on the details of the Gold Award, it’s history, how to earn it and its impacts, visit the Girl Scout website.
Want to learn more about the specific impact individual Girls have made through their Gold Award Projects? Click here and watch videos produced by the organization that highlight just some of the amazing work done! Also, keep up with my future blog posts because I will be posting a post about my experience earning Gold and I’m in the process of profiling another Gold Awardee, who earned her award before her junior year of High School - an achievement that isn’t very common!
Please comment below if you're a Gold Awardee or have earned a Gold Award equivalent and would like to be featured on this Blog.
Thanks for reading!