Girl Scout Awards

2018 Silver Award
ELYSE PANAGAKOs, LIZ MARKAY, TIERNEY MORTON, KELLY BERNICH
TROOP 4362

2018 Silver Award
MADDIE BRASHEAR & CATE HACKETT
TROOP 96431

2018 Silver Award
SAMANTHA GREENWOOD & EMMA BATTIATO
TROOP 96431

2018 Silver Award
HOPE AMEND, KYLIE MCGLYNN, ANNA SUTER
TROOP 96431

2017 Gold Award
OLIVIA RONDEPIERRE
TROOP 944

Play for Patients
Play for Patients focused on the social needs of the children hospitalized at St. Barnabas in Livingston, NJ.  The game room needed much updating and I have realized that many kids cannot use, or do not want to use the games based on being around other sick patients.  My project focused on the individual by making themed game bags that the kids can take back to their room and use with parents or alone.  I made 12 bags including card games, travel games and I-Spy games and they all remain in the hospital game room with tags listing the games and laminated instructions.

2017 Gold Award
MADELINE SCHROEDER
TROOP 1967

This Girl Fights Back
My gold award project aimed to address confidence, self-esteem, and personal safety issues affecting girls in my community.  I wanted to empower girls and give them the tools to live life as leaders who consistently make healthy choices, so I hosted a one-day girl empowerment event.  For my event, titled “This Girl Fights Back”, three dynamic experts volunteered their time to educate, empower, and inspire each girl by raising their self-awareness, improving their communication skills, encouraging self-respect, and teaching them practical life skills to help stay safe.  The experts included a trained adolescent therapist, a nationally known self-defense and personal safety expert and a retired police officer who is now the CHS security guard.  Following this event, I presented a proposal to the Chatham Board of Education, encouraging them to include a personal safety unit in the new CHS health curriculum.  I was thrilled to learn that the board approved this proposal because I believe everyone should have the skills and confidence to avoid dangerous situations and the ability to defend themselves when danger is unavoidable.

2017 Gold Award
NISHITA SINHA
TROOP 1240

Safe Sanitation Solutions – It Takes a Village!
2.4 Billion people worldwide lack access to safe in-home toilets, which results in the spread of harmful diseases and unfortunate situations such as stunted growth.  In my Gold Project, I attempted to create a two-pronged solution to improve upon these dismal sanitation conditions.  The first part of this solution was grounded in scientific research:  after reaching out to sanitation experts and learning about existing toilet technology, I designed an improved toilet design for use in the developing world.  This toilet design was tested in the Rutgers Environmental Sciences Microbiology Lab.  The second aspect was community outreach:  I launched efforts in my community and in villages in India to raise awareness about the sanitation crisis and increased the feasibility of solution implementation.  After more than three years of work, this project has led to the creation of a more practical and sustainable toilet design and has facilitated the installation of over 150 of these toilets in villages in Northern India.  Many more toilet installations are on their way.

2017 Gold Award
ADDISON WALKER
TROOP 1967

Walk Chatham
Addison’s goal was to help share the Chatham Historical Society’s wealth of information with the people of Chatham.  Her project first involved volunteering and working with the Chatham Historical Society. By gathering photos and information, she was then able to create an audiovisual tour of Main Street.  The bulk of her project consisted of making a mobile application to be able to share the content with everyone in the town.  Now the app is available on GooglePlay and the Apple App store.

2017 Gold Award
ELLIE WALKER
TROOP 944

Green Steps
Ellie, a senior at Chatham High School, completed a project that combined a series of actions designed to inform her community on the importance of recycling.  The target audience included both children and adults, who were educated on the importance of recycling, and why proper recycling is so critical for the community and the planet.  Ellie and a representative from the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority took an evaluative tour around the high school and proposed improvements to the school’s current recycling program.  Ellie provided recycling-themed “goodie bags” to Girl Scout Daisies following a “junk-to-art” class she organized for the troop. In addition, Ellie reached out to both her school and neighborhood collecting non-recyclable plastic bottle caps.  The caps were provided to the company Terracycle, which “up-cycles” them into new products such as park benches and plastic storage bins.  After meeting with a local senior resident, Ellie gained insight into Chatham’s recycling history, which she included in her website www.gogreenchatham.weebly.com.  The website also included all events for this project and more information for the community about local recycling requirements.  The “Green Steps” project encouraged responsible recycling habits in Ellie’s community – both children and adults!

2017 Silver Award
CHRISTINE PURSCHKE
TROOP 1203
SAMANTHA MURPHY & CLAIRE SILVERSTEIN
TROOP 2076

Helping Hands for Happy Homes
This Silver Award consisted of making kits for families moving out of Family Promise and into their new homes.  The kits included basic kitchen essentials like pots/pans, mixing bowls, Tupperware, strainers, sponges, dish soap, and a utensil set.  These items were all put in a plastic bin for storage.  The bins also contained easy, affordable, kid-friendly recipes in a cookbook so families could bond together while cooking.  The bins, which would eliminate the need to purchase these items, would help the families moving out to find financial stability.  This would then help ease the process of readjusting to their new housing.

2017 Silver Award
CIARA DOHERTY AND MAYA RANJI
TROOP 2076

Project ECLC
We knew we wanted to work with kids and bring awareness to an underserved population.  In talking to friends and neighbors we realized that a lot of people don’t know what ECLE does, whom they serve or that it is right here in Chatham.  ECLC is a school that serves kids with special needs and it is located right behind Chatham Borough Hall.  We started by contacting Fran Ryder, the school director.  She loved our plan of throwing a 100-day party for the kids and for raising awareness of the school at the Farmer’s Market.  We set up a table at the market on two Saturdays in the fall.  We educated market-goers about ECLE and collected generous donations.  We also held a bake sale.  Then we planned and executed a really fun 100-day party using the funds we raised.  The kids loved it!  We also were able to donate a bunch of much-needed school supplies to the teachers.  In addition, we mad a one-page flyer about ECLE that they can use to education people at future events.

2017 Silver Award
ALYSSA PAONE & AERIN ZUCCHI
TROOP 1203
KATE ZIEGLER
TROOP 2076

Kids Helping Kids on the Green
Alyssa, Kate and Aerin, all of Chatham, focused their Silver Award efforts on raising money for sporting equipment, toys, games, books, diapers, and baby wipes for Children on the Green, a non-profit nursery school and daycare center in Morristown, NJ.  A bake sale and two Mr. A fun and games parties for younger scouts were the fundraisers that the three girls planned and supervised.  After communicating with the co-director of Children on the Green, Alyssa, Kate and Aerin delivered a vanload of equipment to the school and spent a day playing games, making crafts, reading books, and sharing snacks with the pre-K class.

2017 Silver Award
AVA TESORIERO & AMANDA WILLIAMS
TROOP 2215

A+ Supplies
Ava and Amanda collected over 1,000 individual school supplies and created the “Student Supply Closet” to help Port of Entry Students/English Learners of School #15 in Paterson, NJ have access to free school supplies.  Many of these students come from less fortunate families and they don’t have money for even basic supplies for learning and homework.  Students will be able to visit this supply closet and choose necessary items (pencils, pens, notebooks, loose-leaf paper, folders, scissors, glue, etc.) as needed throughout the school year.

2017 Silver Award
SHANNON GILFILLAN, GRACE TOSCANO, & AVA VOIGHT
TROOP 2215

Helping Hands
Shannon, Grace and Ava chose to help children and families affected by homelessness through volunteer work at Homeless Solutions in Morris County.  They volunteered over several months with the children at the shelter and helped with Game Nights, Lunch Prep and Serve, holiday gift-wrapping, organized a birthday party and conducted a donation drive for needed items.  They plan to continue to raise awareness about homelessness and help those affected by it.

2017 Silver Award
EVELYN TOMARO – JULIETTE

Garden Terrace Lesson in a Box
Evelyn worked with Garden Terrace Nursing Home in Chatham, New Jersey.  She created a reusable lesson plan and music list to teach residents about Bach, Chopin, and Telemann.  She then did a presentation for the residents about these composers and performed pieces on piano and oboe by the composers.  Included in the lesson plan were posters and printed materials that could be reused by the residents at a later date.  Because of the relationship Evelyn made with Garden Terrace, she now performs weekly at the nursing home spreading joy to each resident she encounters.

2017 Silver Award
MEGAN ALPEOWITZ
TROOP 2076
KATIE CAVINESS
TROOP 104

Hands and Hears for ECLC
Hands and Hearts for ECLE was a joint collaboration project between the School District of the Chatham’s and the ECLE Special Needs School designed to show the students that everyone shares the same feelings and fears.  To help emphasize this, the students from third grade at Milton Avenue School and Washington Avenue School (250 in total) wrote a fear that they had about the upcoming school year on a cutout of their hand, and they also wrote an encouraging statement on a cutout of a heart.  The ECLE students then created collages with the hands and hears, and in the process, discovered that they are just the same as other children their age, which, in turn, helps them cope with their own fears.  Not only did our program lift the self-esteem and self-confidence of the ECLC students, it also initiated a new friendship, between the school for future events.

2017 Silver Award
SAMANTHA TEISCH
TROOP 1981

Books into the Hands of Kids
Samantha collected 1,216 books and delivered then to the Dionne Warwick Institute in East Orange.  In this school, 5% of the students are homeless and many of them do not have access to books at home.  Some of the books were used to expand the selection in the library and the remaining books were given to the students to have at home.

2017 Silver Award
BRIDGET EVELETH & JEMMA THORNE
TROOP 1016

ECLC Crafts and Connections
Jemma and Bridget donated their time to help ouyt at evening craft classes for adults with special needs.  Normally, with only one person running the class, they complete tow projects over the course of six classes.  With the girls’ help, the students were able to complete three projects including one big string art project, which took three of the six classes.  The girls were also able to solicit donations of all needed craft supplies for these projects, saving the program much needed money.  Throughout the session, the students became much more socially comfortable with both of the girls and new friends within the class, and the girls will continue to help out at these night classes and other ECLC events.

2017 Silver Award
KATE DONSKY & KERRI MCNELIS
TROOP 1016

Read it Forward
The Girl Scouts, Kate and Kerri, worked with Reach Out and Read, a program that gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together.  Kate and Kerri used various techniques to collect books, including having several book drives at their town’s elementary and high schools, giving out flyers to their neighbors, sending emails to friends and family and conducting a book collection at a local Easter Egg Hunt.  The girls ended up collection of 1,100 books.  They delivered 100 books to a doctor’s office in East Orange and about 1,050 books to a clinic at St. Barnabas Hospital.  These books will go to children in low-income families in which the parents cannot afford to buy their kids’ books.

2017 Silver Award
CLAIRE TUNNY
TROOP 104
ROYCE ANKEL & KAITLIN OSUCHA
TROOP 1203

Family Promise Christmas Party
For our Silver Project, we knew in the beginning that we wanted to do a topic involving children.  After coming up with ideas we heard about Family Promise.  Immediately we set up a meeting with a member at Family Promise who proposed the idea of running the children’s holiday party all by ourselves.  Of course we agreed!  We organized games, including bingo, limbo, and pin the nose on the snowman.  We also included crafts such as ornament making, and wreath decorating.  In addition to that we had a secret Santa gift table, where kids could pick presents for their family, and a reading or sticker nook for the smaller children who were attending the party.  All in all, we had a really great experience with the Silver Award because it taught us many skills like talking to adults or sending out emails and it brought us closer to our community and neighboring communities.

2017 Silver Award
KATIE CARRACIOLO, PEYTON MCGARRY & MELISSA MORAN
TROOP 1016
ANNABEL NEUNER
TROOP 1203

One Step Forward
Our Silver Award Project was working with the Apostle House, a women and children’s shelter in Newark, NJ.  We conducted a sheet and bath towel drive and collected outdoor toys to refurbish their backyard.  In addition, we hosted 2 events for the children and mothers at the shelter.  Our first event was a Halloween party where we collected donated costumes for the children and then got a music together teacher to donate her time to do a class for the children.  Second we hosted an Easter party with a puppet show and Easter egg hunt.

2017 Silver Award
ELISE RUGGIERO (with DANIELLE FERNANDEZ)
TROOP 1981

Bridging the Generations Through Music
With personal experience of visiting loved ones in the Livingston, NJ CareOne nursing home and rehabilitation center, the girls were inspired to use their musical talents to improve the quality of life for senior citizens. Elise and Danielle observed that the presence of youth and music instantly improved the moods, demeanor, and social interactions of the residents.  For the girls, the project’s goal was to offer a series of mid-week duet performances using a variety of instruments, researching and transposing music selections, and intergenerational socialization opportunities.  At the completion of the project the girls gifted the CareOne residents with a much-needed portable white board for future music/social events.

2017 Silver Award
GRACE NUGENT
TROOP 1981

Mud Room for Family Promise
Grace designed and built a mud room at Family Promise in Morris Plains, a day center for people without homes, where they can create a resume, job hunt, and get rides to interviews.  The clients were in need of a space to call their own, to organize their belongings, such as their backpacks, coats and shores.  Grace designed and built cubbies, hooks and shelves to provide personal space for people who have little space to call their own.

2017 Silver Award
GRACE ZINN
TROOP 2076

Towels for Foster Children
Over 400 children do not sleep in their own beds each night in Morris and Sussex counties.  They are victims of abuse and neglect and have been taken from their homes to live in foster care.  The simple joys of childhood are not simple for these kids.  For my Girl Scout Silver Award project, I worked with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Morris an Sussex Counties to collect and give 90 of these children a new pool or beach towel of their own this summer.  As an added bonus, CASA gained another volunteer from my community outreach and awareness campaign.

2016 Gold Award
ANNA ZAGOREN

While volunteering at ECLC of New Jersey’s Chatham Campus, a school for students with special needs, I noticed that the students were only receiving forty minutes of art instruction per week.  During this time, I had the opportunity to meet some exceptional student artists, who demonstrated remarkable interest and/or ability in art, but did not have access to additional art instruction.  In response to their need for  more extensive art education, I created The Advanced Art Club, which provides an additional forty-minute period of time for the students in the Club to practice and refine their drawing and painting skills.  The goal is for these students to receive additional art instruction with individualized attention in a smaller classroom setting.  Reducing the classroom size and including myself as an assistant teacher, provided the Club members with the additional time making art and personal guidance.
During my Gold Award, the students completed a portraiture project and participated in an artistic collaboration with students from Chatham High School.  I hope that these students will be encouraged by the time in the Club, and through its continuation in coming years, to further develop their interest in art and continue their art education.

2016 Gold Award
MEG GORDON
TROOP 505

The Hope Project
The Hope Project was created and designed to help address the boredom and apprehension in patients receiving treatment at St. Jude’s Children’s’ Research Hospital.  The goal of this project was to make a hospital stay or the rehabilitation process more enjoyable and colorful.  Art has therapeutic aspects that impact patients positively both from seeing it and creating works.  Art has the potential to alleviate stress and anxiety connected to illnesses.  Patients, in this case, children can articulate their emotions through creativity.
The target audience was the children receiving inpatient and outpatient treatment at St. Jude’s Research Hospital in Memphis Tennessee.
Part One – was decorate 8x10” canvases with the word HOPE stenciled across it with paint to be donated to patients at the hospital.
Part Two – Making Activity Kits of art supplies for the patients. Ages 3 - 8 and ages 9 – 12.
St. Jude’s received 250 Activity Kits and 250 Hope Canvasses.

2016 Silver Award
JANE DES MARAIS, MARGOT HEARNE, & TAYLOR KRAUS
TROOP 579

Children on the Green
We worked with a daycare center in Morristown that serves disadvantaged kids and families.  Children on the Green is connected to Homeless Solutions and Jersey Battered Women’s Shelter.  To raise donations, we organized parties for Chatham Girl Scouts where admission was diapers, toys, etc.  We also provided special attention for the kids by coming in to read and do crafts with them.  In order to continuously give the kids positive role models and extra attention, we set up a volunteer program through the Key Club at the high school.

2016 Silver Award
MIKAYLA MEYLER & HAILEY COATES
TROOP 579

Be Allergen Free Project
We focused our project on spreading awareness about food allergies and helping those who suffer from them.  To do so, we hosted a Halloween Food Allergy Friendly Trunk or Treat, promoted the FARE Teal Pumpkin Project throughout Chatham, and created an awareness information packet and allergy friendly recipe book for the Interfaith Food Pantry clients.

2016 Silver Award
EMILY LAMB & JULIA RASKIN
TROOP 579

Summer of STEM
Our project focused on a three day STEM program for elementary schoolers over the summer at the Library of the Chatham’s.  We explored volcanos and earth science, the science behind bath bombs and cosmetics, and robotics and experiments.  We raised awareness for our project at the Chatham Farmers Market.  In doing this project we hoped to interest more kids, especially girls, to become interested in STEM early in their lives.

2016 Silver Award
ZOE HOROWITZ & MELINA PANAGAKOS
TROOP 579

Helping Our Veterans
Veterans occupy a very important place in our community and we wanted to address an issue that was directly affecting them.  Many veterans in our area are members of the VFW Post 6259, which is located in Berkeley Heights.  It is a nice facility that the veterans use to gather and socialize with on another.  We noticed that outdoor patio space was not really a suitable location for the veterans to sit outside and enjoy each other’s company.  The project involved cleaning the area up, laying downs a new patio surface of gravel, building and staining picnic tables, stringing lights, and installing a fire pit.  We hope that the veterans will be able to use this outdoor space to their enjoyment for many years to come.  The girls loved doing the strenuous tasks and working with such amazing people.  Thank the veterans really made our year extra special.

2016 Silver Award
GRACE HOFHEINZ
TROOP 571

Work Family Homework Help
The Homework Helper program was conducted at the Southern Boulevard School through the work Family aftercare program.  I supported the school by providing homework help to children ages Kindergarten through 3rd grade while they were in aftercare.  I created the program with the help of the Coordinator at SBS and supported the program on Tuesdays.  I was an invaluable resource to the aides of the aftercare program, as I addressed the on-on-one needs of the students that wanted to complete their homework before going home.

2016 Silver Award
AMANDA GALLOP & SOFIA DORREGO
TROOP 571

Library of the Chathams Homework Helpers
The Homework Helper program was established at the Library of the Chatham’s to address the community issue of after school homework support for elementary kids in Kindergarten through 5th grade.  We established the program with the Children’s Room at the library.  We created a homework room with dedicated space and supplies and a weekly sign media.  The program ran on Thursday from 3 -5 pm.  We provided support to various aged children all throughout the school year and even provided support to a bi-lingual child learning to read English.

2016 Silver Award
EMILY BROWN, LIVVY MACCHIA & CAROLINE KIERNAN
TROOP 579

Cerebral Palsy/Horizon School Support and Awareness
Our project focused on helping a local school for children with Cerebral Palsy, the Horizon School.  After meeting with school administrators, teachers, and the children, we saw one challenge they faced was with reading.  Since many children with CP have a hard time reading and using their hands, they have boxes full of items that the teachers use to tell them stories so they can feel and touch things in the stories.  However, for the children that are trying to read there are no books to go along with these boxes of items.  We decided to create a mini library of books to go with the story boxes for the children that wanted to try to read.  We created books that had large print, simple pictures and words, and were a size that would be easy for them to handle.
We also saw that the school had a constant shortage of paper products.  We rans a supply drive which provided the school with three SUV’s full of paper products desperately needed by the school.  During the supply drive we were also able to spread awareness in the community about the Horizon School and cerebral palsy, a disease that doesn’t get as much attention as other diseases.

2016 Silver Award
JACKIE AHRENS & MEGHAN FLOOD
TROOP 1982

SOS Beautification Project
SOS (Strengthen Our Sisters) is a domestic violence shelter in northern NJ where many women and children live.  The garden and grass areas outside the shelter were really run down and overgrown.  Whe helped improve the shelter by planting some flowers and vegetables/herbs, and made it into a memorial garden in honor of a young mother at the shelter who had recently passed away unexpectedly.

2016 Silver Award
EMMA DOWLING & ZOE IORIZZO
TROOP 1982

Lending Library
We created a portable library system where visitors at the Soup Kitchen can read books while they are visiting.  We chose to do this project because we wanted to make an impact for those at the soup kitchen.  Books are a gateway to one’s imagination and can be used when someone needs to pass time.  Moreover, people may not be able to own books, thereby not experiencing the wonder this is literature.  Visitors have the option of borrowing the book and returning it or keeping the book and replacing it with one of their own.

2016 Silver Award
LANEY ANDREYCHUK & CAROLINE CREE
TROOP 1982

Comforts of Home
We received our silver award for a project called “Comforts of Home”.  The project worked hand in hand with a local nursing home, where we created seasonal wreaths to hang on doors to brighten up the common spaces.  The residents have given us rave reviews and have been so grateful.

2014 Silver Award
Kaitlyn Piechnik, Emily Como & Defne Selen
Troop 248

The scouts worked with The Collinsville Center, a low income children's center in Morristown, New Jersey providing programs for the children ages 2 to 5.  Programs included a sports day, Thanksgiving decorating, an Easter egg hunt and lots of reading to the children.  The scouts also raised over $600 by hosting bake sales in order to purchase a sign for the school as well much needed craft supplies and sand for the center's playground.

2014 Silver Award
Mila Cloidt
Troop 248

Mila worked with a social worker at the Carol G Simon Cancer Center at Morristown Medical Center.  She compiled 32 care packages to comfort children whose parents have cancer.  Each package included letters of encouragement, a bear with a white t-shirt and fabric pens so that the parent could write a note on their child's bear giving their child something to hold and comfort them while their parent was at the hospital for surgery or receiving treatment, a picture frame, and purple support bracelets for both the parent and child.

2014 Silver Award
Hannah Egl & Jennifer Vespasiano
Troop 248

The scouts worked with Mt. Pleasant Animal Shelter, the area's only no kill animal shelter in East Hanover, New Jersey raising donations for their operations and making a video to advertise their programs including adoptions, volunteering and specifically their pet concierge program.  The video was used in their marketing including social media to increase exposure for the shelter. The scouts also sponsored a stand at the local Fishawack Festival where shelter volunteers were able to bring adoptable dogs and speak with members of the community about their mission and gain further exposure for the shelter. All proceeds from the event were used to purchase much needed supplies like bleach, paper towels, and other pet supplies for the shelter.

2014 Silver Award
Kimmy Tomaino
Troop 248

Kimmy worked with the local Veteran hospitals in Lyons New Jersey (VANJ Healthcare System). She provided the hospitalized Veterans with movies that were collected through donations and purchased from money raised by a bake sale. The Veterans were also surprised with a homemade BINGO game with a movie theme. The Veterans then participated in the game to win prizes. Overall, Kimmy donated 200 movies and a classic game the Veterans can play over and over again. This should bring them joy for a lifetime.