ABOUT US FOR GIRLS FOR PARENTS FOR VOLUNTEERS FOR DONORS PRODUCT SALES FORMS, ETC.
Upcoming Events

July 10
Event: 'Basic Leader Training - Brownie'

July 14
CLOSED LD-ER5 LEAD: Into the Wild

July 14
Closed(accepting waitlist)LD-ML8 LEAD: City Explorers *LEADs 15 and older

July 14
Closed(accepting waitlist)LD-ML9/10 LEAD: Brownies By the Bay

July 14
Into the Wild Week Camp

July 14
CLOSED (accepting waitlist) ML8 - City Explorers Week Camp

July 14
Event: 'Basic Leader Training - Junior'

Sign up for our eNewsletter!
Email:
Select:
2007 GOLD/SILVER AWARDEES

Girl Scouts Greater Long Beach Council proudly recognized 11 Senior Girl Scouts ages 14 to 17 for their outstanding achievement and contribution to the community with the Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouting. To earn this award, each girl fulfilled rigorous requirements involving the development of skills and leadership, the exploration of career possibilities and self-discovery. The girls then designed and completed a major project that will leave a positive and lasting impact on her community.

Please click on name to view info.

Gold Awardees

Heather Champlin
Mayfair High School, Troop 640
Heather utilized her public relations skills and her love for children in the creation and implementation of her Gold Award project: A Touch of Happiness for the children at Miller Children’s Hospital. Heather made a number of presentations to a variety of classes at her school and to local merchants, sharing the needs of the patients at Miller Children’s Hospital with them. She collected toys, books, and craft materials and presented them to the administrators and children at the hospital. Once the collected items were delivered, Heather decided to augment her project by volunteering at the hospital. She worked with the Childlife staff, entertaining the children and spending quality time with them. Heather’s project far exceeded her expectations; she collected over 271 toys and games for the children. She learned a great deal about the importance of age-appropriate toys for children and how the children who are a little older, about 11 or 12 years old, are sometimes forgotten when it comes to people doing outreach projects for children’s hospitals.
Kiara Cummings
Carson Christian High School, Troop 326
Kiara’s project focused on literacy. She created a reading program consisting of one hour meetings held three times a week for four months. She collected donations of books and craft supplies to implement her program. Each session, the children who participated would read and discuss a book and then complete a craft based on the story. Kiara measured the success of her program through worksheets she designed for the children to complete and by assessing their comprehension of the reading materials through their participation in the discussions she facilitated. This experience taught Kiara about patience and gave her a renewed compassion for children struggling with reading and academia in general. She also learned that she has a great love for working with children and has decided to make this a long-term career goal.
Rebekah Nelson
Wilson High School, Troop 116
Rebekah chose to work with Christian Outreach in Action Women’s Transitional Apartment Complex, which is a temporary housing facility for mothers who have recently completed a recovery program for substance abuse. The only designated play area for the children before Rebekah completed her project was a small corner in the parking garage. Not an ideal situation, and Rebekah decided to do something about it! Rebekah obtained a grant from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans to facilitate her project. Using the grant funding, Rebekah was able to purchase flooring materials, fencing to secure the play area, decorative plants, and toddler play equipment. Rebekah learned a great deal about financial budgeting and how valuable her leadership skills were through completing her project. This project truly benefited the residents of the COA Women’s Transitional Apartment Complex because the children now have a safe and beautiful place to play and call their own!
Ursula Patel
Millikan High School, Troop 116
Ursula volunteered to spend her time with the patients of Miller Children’s Hospital and their siblings. She created arts-n-crafts play days and donated toys, books, and games to the hospital. Ursula also spent many hours in hospital rooms visiting the children who were unable to participate in the play days because she wanted every child to feel included in her project. After learning that the siblings of the patients often spent many hours at the hospital visiting, Ursula provided each of them with a goody bag filled with small toys and activities to keep them busy. Ursula solicited local businesses for donations to her project through ask letters and personal conversation with the store employees. Through her fundraising efforts, Ursula learned that not everyone says yes and that it is a time-consuming endeavor; this caused her to have a deep appreciation for the community members who participated with her in this project! A Smiling Child also provided insight regarding her career goals; after spending so much time with the Child Life specialists at Miller Children’s Hospital, Ursula has decided to pursue a career in this field.
Amanda Phelps
La Mirada High School, Troop 146
Amanda chose to design a project that would utilize her organizational skills while meeting an essential need in our local schools. Amanda organized all of the books in the library, teacher classrooms, and the guided reading room into standard “leveling.” This project was very detail oriented requiring hours of research, sorting and bagging the books by level, labeling each book and bag, and finally organization each classroom, library space, and guided reading room. Upon completion of the task portion of her project, Amanda created a teacher survey to evaluate the success of her project. Levels to Better Reading enabled students to locate the appropriate reading materials for their reading level which will result in increasing their reading ability during the required independent reading time. Through this project, Amanda learned that she has a flair for organization and she works well with adults. She has also committed to continue to level books as new materials arrive at the school.
Jessica Rudolph
Cerritos High School, Troop 154
Jessica collaborated with her Girl Scout sister, Heidi Yansen, to design and implement their project, Department of Children Services Clean-up and Toy Drive. The project was designed to address and fulfill a need of children when they are removed from the care their parent or guardian and become a child in the foster care system. After learning that the children typically are removed from their homes without any toys or personal items, Jessica and Heidi organized toy and personal hygiene kits and gave them to the children upon arrival at DCS. These items provided a bit of comfort and the children were allowed to take their new possessions with them to their new home. Jessica and Heidi also recruited their other troop members, friends, and adults to help create a new playroom for the children to play in while waiting for their paperwork to be processed. Jessica was not aware of DCS, or the situation that so many children are faced with, until she became involved with this project. It was a very enlightening experience and one that has permanently touched her heart.
Jena Silverman
Tarbut V’ Torah, Troop 575
Jena worked with the Seal Beach Animal Care Center with their “Senior Day” program. After learning of the difficulty in placing senior cats in adoptive homes, Jena decided to collaborate with them for her Gold Award Project. Jena facilitated an “Adopt a Senior” event at the Signal Hill PetSmart to help raise awareness and to try to get some of the older cats adopted into good homes. A second component of her project was the creation of fifty adoptions kits containing educational information and some essential cat items for the pet store to give to families who adopt the senior cats. Jena was a little taken back with the overwhelming gratitude she received from the staff of PetSmart during and upon the completion of her project. She learned that senior animals are usually the forgotten ones, because most people are looking to adopt kittens and puppies rather than the more mature animals. She learned that these mature animals are usually very loving, gentle and already trained! She encourages anyone looking to adopt a new pet to think about adopting a senior animal.

Erin Smith
Long Beach Polytechnics High School, Troop 575
Erin chose a project that would expand upon the project she completed for her Silver Award. Erin provided “warming rolls” for seniors in her community, for her Silver Award. For her Gold Award, she decided to provide “warming rolls” for the resident families of Interval House, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. Erin first became acquainted with the Interval House when she began volunteering at the shelter early last year. Each mother received their own “warming roll” containing warm fleece scarves for her and her children, coloring books and crayons, and beverage packets. Erin was very intentional in choosing the fabric for the scarves; bright feminine fabric for the girls and primary colors for the boys. This project dearly touched Erin’s heart, as did all of the families who were recipients of the “warming rolls.” She also learned that projects such as these take much more than just time and effort. She used her creativity in making the scarves, her organizational skills to complete the project in a timely fashion, and her communication skills to describe her vision to the staff at the Interval House.
Amberrose Valcho
La Mirada High School, Juliette
Amberrose chose a project to assist our men and women who are currently deployed in Iraq. After spending time with a close family friend who came home on bereavement leave and was going back to Iraq, she learned about the difficulty the soldiers had in obtaining everyday personal hygiene items. Amberrose partnered with her Girl Scout sister, Jessica Watts, and created a project titled “Shop for a Soldier/Serving the Soldier.” They designed their project with two objectives, (1) to raise awareness of the needs of soldiers in their community and (2) to collect items to send to the soldiers serving in Iraq. Amberrose and Jessica initially solicited local stores to donate items but found that this idea was not very effective. They changed their tactics and obtained permission from store managers to asked customers to participate in the project by purchasing and donating items from their “Shop for a Soldier/Serving the Soldier” list. They found that the customers were very supportive of the project and liked the idea that they were able to give something back to the brave soldiers who were stationed in Iraq. Amberrose is still amazed by the generosity demonstrated by the community in support of her project. She learned a great deal about organization, and the need for flexibility when planning a project.
Jessica Watts
La Mirada High School, Juliette
Jessica partnered with one of her Girl Scout sisters, Amberrose Valcho, in creating her project “Shop for a Soldier/Serving the Soldier.” Jessica really wanted to raise community awareness and advocate the need to support our men and women who are currently deployed in Iraq. This project provided the opportunity to address this desire, and had the added bonus of providing much needed supplies for the soldiers. This was very rewarding project for Jessica. She and Amberrose spent many hours standing outside the doors of local supermarkets asking customers to support their project. They provided each customer with an approved list of items that they could purchase and then donate to the soldiers serving in Iraq. The response was amazing, resulting in Jessica needing to empty the donation box numerous times during her shift! The generosity was truly inspiring. Following the collection portion of the project, Jessica and Amberrose spent many hours packing and delivering the items to local armed forces offices. Jessica feels that her Gold Award project has been the most rewarding service project with which she has ever been involved. She feels fortunate to have met so many interesting and generous people. It has truly been her honor to participate in supporting our soldiers serving in Iraq.

Heidi Yansen
Lakewood High School, Troop 154
Heidi partnered with her Girl Scout sister, Jessica Rudolph, in designing a project to address the needs of children currently in the custody of the Department of Children Services. Heidi and Jessica initially decided to collect toys and stuffed animals for the children to help ease their emotional pain. After meeting with two DCS staff members, they decided to expand their project to include a warm and inviting play room for the children, where they would be able to enjoy themselves during the time social services is seeking foster care placement for them. Heidi and Jessica held a number of drives to collect toys for the children, and they also obtained supplies and organized a work crew to transform the children’s playroom and waiting area from a drab, institutional space to one that is much more inviting and child-friendly. Heidi was profoundly affected by her project. She was touched so very much by the situation these children are living, how terrified they are when they arrive at DCS, and how fragile they are. She also gained a new appreciation for her own parents and reflects upon this project as a privilege and not a chore.

Silver Awardees

The Greater Long Beach Girl Scout Council also distinguished itself by producing 45 Silver Awardees. The Silver Award is given to Scouts ages 11 to 14 whose accomplishments symbolize their potential as they mature and work to better the lives of others.


Stephany Arellano Amanda Hernandez Caylee Norris
Kelsey Austin Ashley Hollowood Katelyn Nunez
Dre’Jean Bey Kayle Horvath Nicole Osako
Monique Bonilla Chelsea Johnson Kristyn Padian
Aimee Caplen Tiffany Johnson Sara Rivera
Catherine Carothers Michelle Law Britney Roché
Heather Champlin Shelby Leinen Megan Roy
Marissa Delgado Debbie Leung Alexis Santana
Veronica Fairbanks Hannah Lipman Alyssa Sipin
Kelly Fruhling Sabrina Matteau Megan Tisdale
Katherine Geesing Alana McKean Megan Turner
Yazmin Godinez Iman Nabulsi Cassidy Vander Molen
Casey Haack Dionna Neally Mackenzie Wallace
Alyssa Hancock Alexandra Noriega Caitlyn Wielt
Marielle Hanley Danielle Noriega Ayanna Wilson

Home | About Us | Join | Properties | Events | Cookies | Council Shop | Volunteer | FAQs | Glossary | Calendar | Contact Us

Copyright © 2007 Girl Scout Council of Greater Long Beach 4040 N. Bellflower Blvd Long Beach, CA 90808
Phone: (562) 421-8456 ext. 200 Main Fax: (562) 429-2751