Gold Award Project

I began my Girl Scout Gold Award project, called “1, 2, 3, Vote!” in 2017. This project was inspired by my AP research project on the college vote in 2016, and was designed to help get more young people to vote by educating high school students about their rights as voters, voting procedures, and why their vote matters. For the project, I distributed over 200 voter registration applications at voter registration booths, and in November, I gave a voter-education presentation on Career Day 2018 to over 300 juniors and seniors at my high school. I collaborated with my state senator, Judy Swank to introduce legislation in January 2018 that would automatically register young drivers to vote when they turn eighteen, and similar legislation introduced later that year! Finally, I shared my voter information sheet and PowerPoint presentation with all 952 public high schools in Pennsylvania, which could affect roughly 125,000 high school seniors yearly. The root cause of the issue my project addressed is a lack of education. Young citizens do not know their rights as student voters, so they cannot actively participate in civic engagement opportunities as much as they may want. High school students need to be taught their rights as student voters before they go on to post-secondary education, the workforce, or military because they need to start good voting habits early. More than anything else, my Gold Award taught me that I am more capable and organized than I thought. For example, I never thought I would be proposing and working on voter legislation before I was old enough to vote, but that turned out to be one of the easiest parts of my project and it was definitely the most unexpected! In addition, I realized that I am more willing to work hard to achieve my goals than a lot of kids my age. I am also more open to seizing opportunities when they present themselves. For example, when I attended the Girl Scout Governance event in Philadelphia, I met Ashley Biden and Carolyn DeWitt, President of Rock the Vote, and spoke with them about my project. Both generously offered to help me in various ways, and I was even invited to help Rock the Vote rewrite their voter education materials this summer. It is amazing what can happen if you just put yourself out there and share what you are doing. Finally, I learned that, although I am interested in politics, I do not want to be a politician. Far too much time is spent getting elected rather than getting things done, which I would find way too frustrating. Overall, working on this project has been extremely satisfying because I know I have made— and will continue to make—a difference in building the political power of my peers. My advice for younger Girl Scouts is start your Gold Award early, as in freshman or sophomore year. Juggling a Gold Award, AP classes, and the college application process is not something you want to be doing at the same time. This also gives you so much more time to grow your project to something bigger than you ever imagined. Have confidence in yourself and your project because you can do so much more with this than you know.

It is amazing what can happen if you just put yourself out there...