Girl Scouts Go for the Gold

   When you hear "Girl Scouts" you think "cookies." That was true even fifty years ago when I sold them for 35 cents a box. But today's Girl Scouts are about a lot more than Thin Mints and Samoas.
   For instance, this past month Kellyn Flanagan, a Senior at Collins Hill High School earned her Gold Award. And cookies had nothing to do with it. 
The Gold Award, the highest achievement is Girl Scouting is comparable to the Eagle Scout Award in Boy Scouts except that it focuses more on individual rather than group accomplishments.
   To earn her award, Kellyn, a thirteenth-year scout, planned Ingathering 2004, a camping experience in Rutledge Georgia for her service unit, Golden Triangle in Lawrenceville. Kellyn handled everything from cabin assignments and meals to decorations and activities for over 250 people on a budget of $20,000.
   Her "CandyLand," theme, based on the board game included candy-making sessions and gingerbread house workshops. They even played CandyLand on a life-sized gameboard that Kellyn constructed.
   Each troop picked its own candy logo for the weekend, ranging from "Smarties" to "Dum-Dums" and showcased everyone's creativity outside the box. Kellyn led a parade through candy-coded cabins, allowing the young ladies to experience sweet success as they expressed both solidarity and individuality through their theme. 
   For her community service, Kellyn had her troops design and donate Christmas stockings to the Humane Society and HeadStart in Buford. 
   Kellyn, who finds time to serve as a fitness trainer at Collins Hill, one of the few schools in the state with a student program, put 143 hours into her Gold Award project, nearly three times the minimum time required. Of her achievement, she said, "It gives me satisfaction knowing that I'm capable of doing something of this magnitude, that a seventeen-year-old is capable of taking on this type of task." And it isn't over yet. Her Gold Award makes her eligible for a scholarship up to $10,000.
   Kellyn has made Collins Hill look good for Girl Scouting, but it doesn't end here. Her friend and fellow Girl Scout Claire Welmering is also earning her Gold Award. Claire, a twelfth-year scout-Dang! Somehow she missed being a Daisy in Kindergarten!-has already put 70 hours into her project for the Humane Society of Gwinnett County. She is organizing a collection of newspaper, food and pet supplies for local animals. For those interested in contributing, Claire has placed bins at PetSmart on Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road and PetCo on Riverside Drive. 
   Both girls plan to go to college in the fall. Kellyn is looking at fitness training; Claire is serious about marine biology. Someday, both plan to become Girl Scout leaders. As for the cookie thing, one might think they were so busy working on their Gold Awards they didn't have time for cookies. Hardly. Between the two of them, they sold over 400 boxes.

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