Millsboro youth earns Girl Scout Gold Award

Girl Scouts of the Chesapeake Bay announced Eleni Apostolidis, a homeschool student from Millsboro, has earned the highest award in Girl Scouting, the Girl Scout Gold Award.

Eleni's Gold Award project, titled Robotics at the Lewes Library, gave local homeschool students like herself the opportunity to participate in a competition-based robotics program, which they would not have otherwise had access to because most robotics programs are based in public schools.

The VEX IQ Robotics program Eleni designed and hosted is a biweekly gathering at the library where homeschool students engineer, construct and program a robot completely from scratch. Later, the student-built robots would go on to compete in various challenges to prove their functionality. The library will continue to host the program with the help of mentors and coaches from the community.

With the financial assistance from the library and local funders, and under the guidance of her project mentor Emily Ellinger, Eleni's project provided the homeschool students with a hands-on opportunity to apply practical STEM concepts in real-life scenarios, and gave them resources to engage in more STEM projects in the future.

To earn the Girl Scout Gold Award, Eleni completed more than 80 hours of work and seven steps, which include: Identifying an issue in her community, investigating the issue thoroughly, building a team to support her efforts, creating a plan to take action, presenting the plan and gathering feedback, taking action by leading a team to carry out the plan, and educating and inspiring.

Gold Award Girl Scouts become innovative problem-solvers, empathetic leaders, confident public speakers and focused project managers. They learn resourcefulness, tenacity and decision-making skills, giving them an edge personally and professionally. As they take action to transform their communities, Gold Award Girl Scouts gain tangible skills and prove they’re the leaders today’s world needs.

According to recent research, Gold Award Girl Scouts are more likely to fill leadership roles at work and in their personal lives, and are more civically engaged than their non-Girl Scout peers. Some 87% of Gold Award Girl Scouts agree that earning their Gold Award gave them skills that help them succeed professionally. And 72% said earning their Gold Award helped them get a scholarship. Changing the world doesn’t end when a Girl Scout earns her Gold Award. A full 99% of Gold Award Girl Scout alumnae take on leadership roles in their everyday lives.