While there are an estimated 10 million Girl Scouts and Girl Guides from 152 different countries across the world, one of the best troops is stationed in Wildwood.
Members of Girl Scout Troop 84504, local Wildwood Cadette/Senior troop earned the Girl Scout Silver Award, the second-highest award given by the organization.
To receive the award, the local troop needed to complete a 50-hour community service project aiming to assist with the needs of the community with a sustainable solution. The project needed to go beyond the standard service provided by volunteers during the past scout year, September 2023 to July 2024.
Eight scouts — Samantha S., Haylie Karabec, Eva Dariano, Elizabeth Sanchez, Cora Curtis, Haliyah Barkman, Alexis Wood, and Kylie Nisbet — led and worked on three projects focused on overcrowding at animal shelters, food insecurity for children, and empathy for children with chronic illnesses.
“The Silver Award requires girls to take an in-depth look at their community, often through interviews, research, and direct observation. They explore the root causes of identified issues, asking, ‘Why is this problem happening?’ From there, they determine how they can make a lasting impact by addressing those root causes, rather than just alleviating symptoms,” said Sara Arias-Steele, the vice president of programs and partnerships for the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida.
For the food insecurities in children in Sumter County, the troop worked with the Wildwood Soup Kitchen — a local church-based not-for-profit organization started in 1992 — on its “Snack Packs For Kids” program.
Along with working to provide free meals to people in the county, the Wildwood Soup Kitchen helps increase food access to local children by providing Items like granola bars, fruit cups, and juice boxes. The snack packs are assembled and distributed to 425 children from low-income families in Sumter County. To help, Sanchez, Curtis, and Barkman created promotional material — including a brochure and educational video.
The next group — Samantha, Karabec, and Dariano — focused on highlighting the negative consequences of overcrowding in animal shelters by working with the Sumter County Animal Services to create social media content and coordinate adoption events for the “Helping Animals” project.
“Their efforts went above and beyond the usual volunteer roles, and their dedication to helping our animals find homes was truly impactful,” Jessica Douglas, public information officer for the county, said. “This kind of initiative is a great example of how volunteers can make a difference, and the troop’s work really helped to raise awareness about our shelter’s mission and the importance of pet adoption.”Douglas said the event organized by the Girl Scouts saw an increased amount of community engagement and that the county is hopeful that the effort has inspired others to find unique ways to contribute animal adoption.Wood and Nisbet worked to teach younger children about empathy for others, no matter the differences — focusing on children who have a chronic illness for the “Love and Inclusion for All Kids” project.
The pair created an educational video and a discussion guide to help facilitate conversations about different illnesses. They also held an age-appropriate discussion with 120 students about sensitivity towards peers with chronic illness.
“They wanted to make it personal, so they interviewed their peers with visible and nonvisible disabilities to see what their everyday life experience is like. At the end of it the message the girls got was that they wanted to be treated like everyone else,” said Katherine Karabec, advisor for the “Love and Inclusion for All Kids” project.
“They created material to share the message, ‘Not everyone will be the same but you can include anyone in anything.’”
The work of the scouts was shared with two schools in Sumter County, The Villages Charter Elementary School and Bushnell Elementary School.
“The girls really got a lot out of the process,” Arias-Steele said. “They developed skills like teamwork, problem-solving, and leadership throughout the process and the award is a nice incentive.”
For more information about the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida, visit gswcf.org.
Staff writer Brea Jones can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5414, or brea.jones@thevillagesmedia.com.
