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Moorhead troop leader highlights Girl Scouts’ leadership, service and Gold Award projects
Summary
A Moorhead elementary teacher and troop leader described Girl Scouts activities, community service projects and girls’ work toward Silver and Gold awards that include service bags for people experiencing homelessness and supports for animals and mental-health needs.
Kayla Wainscott, a fifth-grade teacher in Moorhead Public Schools and a Girl Scout troop leader, spoke to the Moorhead Human Rights Commission on March 18 about her troop’s activities and leadership development work.
Wainscott described Girl Scouting as a leadership organization open to girls from kindergarten through 12th grade that builds “courage, confidence, and character.” She said her local troop has completed Silver Award projects and that three eighth-grade cadets are beginning Gold Award projects; only about 4 percent of Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award, she noted.
The troop’s recent Silver Award involved creating 100 care bags for people experiencing homelessness. The bags contained water bottles, cereal bars, a handmade blanket, a handmade coloring book, crayons and a list of local resources, Wainscott said. The troop distributed the bags at local shelters, libraries and other community locations.
Wainscott also outlined typical troop activities — camping, STEM badges, first-aid and babysitting training, and the cookie program, which she said teaches business and money-management skills. She said individual girls have sold more than 500 boxes of cookies in some seasons and the troop once stored more than 6,300 boxes in one garage during cookie season.
The three gold-award projects described at the meeting include building fidget bags for people newly diagnosed with autism or anxiety, assembling self-care bags for people with post-traumatic stress disorder, and a project supporting animal rescues.
Commissioners thanked Wainscott for bringing students’ community-service work to the commission’s attention and noted the troop’s service connections with organizations that help people experiencing homelessness and local animal rescues.
Wainscott said girls in the troop gain leadership, public-speaking and problem-solving skills that she and parents see reflected in school performance and extracurricular success.
