Local Valley Stream Teens Earn Prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award

Girl Scouts of Nassau County recently celebrated 51 local Girl Scouts who are members of the 2024 Girl Scout Gold Award class who made a positive impact, addressing causes they care about in their communities. Valley Stream residents Asha Gajraj and Valentina Fratarcangeli were among those Girl Scouts throughout Nassau County who reached this milestone.

“Every Girl Scout who earned their Gold Award this year demonstrated remarkable resilience, dedication, and passion in developing and implementing a plan to tackle a societal challenge. We are immensely proud and impressed by each one of them for achieving their goals and making a lasting impact on their communities,” said Rande Bynum, CEO of Girl Scouts of Nassau County. “Their commitment is undeniable, and their efforts have positively affected countless lives. This year, our Girl Scouts addressed critical issues such as environmental justice and sustainability, mental and emotional health, gender equality in sports, and more. We applaud each of them for their significant contributions.”

Girls in grades 9-12 begin their Gold Award journeys by identifying a civic or social issue that holds importance to them. Next, a Girl Scout builds a team to support her project with a mission to create a positive impact in her community. Gold Award projects are coordinated so that they can continue long after girls earn their award by establishing nonprofit organizations, publishing books to be added to school library collections, implementing classroom lessons to be taught for years to come or other initiatives to create lasting change. Through the process, Gold Award Girl Scouts become innovative problem-solvers, empathetic leaders, confident public speakers, and focused project managers, while educating and inspiring others. 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 are the leaders our world needs.

After learning about the harmful effects of excess nitrates in Long Island’s water supply, Asha focused

her Gold Award on educating the public through a series of workshops at her local library. Excess nitrates cause harmful algae blooms, destroying local ecosystems and contaminating the drinking water found in aquifers. Asha gathered information from the Nassau County Soil and Water Conservation District and worked with an engineer from Liberty Water. She contacted journalists from the Long Island Herald and Newsday, who published articles regarding the importance of rain gardens in reducing nitrate input. She partnered with her high school’s earth science teacher to incorporate her presentation into his curriculum, making her project sustainable. Her project is accessible to the public in videos published on YouTube and Vimeo.

For her Gold Award, Valentina created Operation Comfort, an initiative to provide support and

comfort to US Air Force personnel from the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Valentina, who had moved from Valley Stream to Wake Forest during high school, received assistance from the US Service Organization and her fellow students at Heritage High School. With their help, she facilitated the collection of granola bars, fruit snacks, and handwritten notes of gratitude. The initiative resulted in the assembly of 460 care packages that were deployed to military service people. The project will be sustained through an ongoing collaboration with the National Honor Society chapter at her high school.

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. Eighty-seven percent (87%) of Gold Award Girl Scouts agree that earning their Gold Award gave them skills that help them succeed professionally. Seventy-two percent (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. Ninety-nine percent (99%) of Gold Award Girl Scout alums take on leadership roles in their everyday lives.

Girls in grades K-12 can begin their Girl Scout journey at any age. As girls grow with Girl Scouts, they learn hands-on leadership skills they will use to make their mark through the Gold Award and beyond. To join or volunteer, visit www.gsnc.org/join.

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We are Girl Scouts: Girl Scouts bring their dreams to life and work together to build a better world. Through programs in Nassau County, across Long Island, and from coast to coast, Girl Scouts of all backgrounds and abilities can be unapologetically themselves as they discover their strengths and rise to meet new challenges—whether they want to climb to the top of a tree or the top of their class, lace up their boots for a hike or advocate for climate justice, or make their first best friends. Backed by trusted adult volunteers, mentors, and millions of alum, Girl Scouts lead the way as they find their voices and make changes that affect the issues most important to them. To join, volunteer, reconnect, or donate, visit www.gsnc.org.