Girl Scout Troop 33529 members, from left to right: Camilla Holmes, Ada Strom and Rose Burkhardt.
By Liv Baker
Receiving the Girl Scout Silver Award is no easy task for a Cadette, but it became the reality for three local Girl Scouts of Troop 33529.
Camilla Holmes, Rose Burkhardt and Ada Strom were awarded the Girl Scout Silver Award for creating a helpful brochure which offers support to middle schoolers struggling with poor mental health.
The Girl Scout Silver Award signifies meaningful contribution to the community and is awarded to Cadettes who either complete a Cadette Journey, demonstrate leadership experience or design a sustainable project confronting an issue impacting the local community.
The award requires 50 hours of hard work, planning and leadership demonstration. It is one of the most honorable awards a Girl Scout can earn.
For this troop’s Silver Award project, they created a pamphlet that includes ways to recognize feelings of anxiety and depression, offering coping techniques and resources to those struggling.
Inspired by firsthand experiences with poor mental health, these girls noticed the lack of discussion surrounding mental health in middle schools and aimed to remind others they are not alone.
“It has always been a very personal topic for us,” the troop said. “Many students, including ourselves, struggle with stress from fitting in and maintaining good grades. We know how hard it can be when you don’t have healthy coping strategies and wished we had something like this when we were going into middle school.”
The girls said their goal was to help others understand their feelings, encourage them to ask for help and offer support.
Beginning with 200 printed copies, the pamphlets were first distributed around Randall Middle School. After receiving the Silver Award, they were distributed to 39 middle schools in Hillsborough County. It even made its way to local elementary schools’ nurse offices.
In April, the troop was officially recognized by the Hillsborough County Public Schools Board.
Project advisor and troop leader Jennifer Strom said that with the help of a licensed community mental health specialist and local printers, the girls were able to use funds from selling Girl Scout cookies to print the brochures.
“Next up, they are aiming for their Gold Award, which will likely also be related to mental health and will likely include what couldn’t in this project,” Jennifer Strom said. “We’re just so proud of them because they’re bound to achieve higher things, that I know.”
To contact the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida, call 813-281-4475. You can visit its Leadership Center & Girl Scout store at 4610 Eisenhower Blvd. in Tampa.