Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois (GSSI) is pleased to
announce that Hannah Pavlisin has received the Girl Scout Gold Award, the
highest award a Girl Scout can receive.
For her Girl Scout Gold Award project, Hannah
wanted to help reduce the fear and isolation that many patients at St. Louis
Children’s Hospital patients face by providing a fun event to take them away
from their troubles for the night. Her event, named Dare to Dream, offered hands-on activities, fun demonstrations and
special guests.
“I’ve always loved interacting with kids
and in college I will be studying Nursing,” said Hannah. “It seemed like a
perfect fit for me and the hard part was narrowing down all of my ideas!”
First, Hannah transformed a playroom and
cafeteria at Children’s Hospital into outer space and created a giant cardboard
“above the clouds” castle for children to enjoy. Next, she set up stations for activities that
included making play jet-packs to go along with the space theme, painting art
canvasses, decorating cupcakes and creating photo frames. She also arranged for local firemen, police
officers, a pilot, a pastry chef, professional artists and Olympians to talk
with children about their jobs, give demonstrations and take photos (to place
in the kids’ new photo frames). At the
end of the night, all of the children got teddy bears to take back to their
rooms.
Along
with fulfilling her desire to cheer up hospitalized children, Hannah was also
able to hone her leadership skills by earning her Girl Scout Gold Award. “I learned so much about myself and working
with others,” she said. “While
leadership has always came naturally to me, recruiting and directing those
older than me was a new challenge.”
Hannah is the daughter of James and Pennie
Pavlisin. She is a GSSI Trifecta Award
winner for earning her Girl Scout Bronze Award, Girl Scout Silver Award and
Girl Scout Gold Award. She is currently a senior at O’Fallon Township
High School and plans to attend Bradley University to study Nursing in the
fall.
The Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest
award a Girl Scout can earn, recognizes a Girl Scout's commitment to excellence
as she develops skills and values to meet present and future challenges in her
life. To earn the Girl Scout Gold Award, a Girl Scout Senior or Girl
Scout Ambassador must design and carry out a project that fulfills a need
within a girl’s community, creates change, and is sustainable. The project
must be completed with a suggested minimum of 80 hours of work. Only
about 6 percent of eligible girls earn the prestigious Gold Award.
