Two North Central Phoenix young women have earned their Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor a Girl Scout can receive. Both are members of the Arizona Cactus-Pine Council area.

Lisa Bowman

Lisa Bowman

Lisa Bowman, a senior at Sunnyslope High School, was recognized for her “Let’s Go to College” project. Bowman noticed that many high school students lack a clear understanding of how colleges evaluate potential students. In addition, she saw many classmates refrain from applying to their dream schools due to fear of rejection.

Determined to help students navigate the college application process and put their best foot forward, Bowman created an 8-part video series that reviews the dos and don’ts of preparing for and applying to college. The videos focus on topics like the importance of grades, extracurricular activities and test-taking.

To advertise the video series, Bowman created a commercial for the school’s morning announcements and promoted it via social media.

Sierra Aranda, who graduated from North High School last fall and is in her second semester at Phoenix College, was honored for creating the Family School Library.

Aranda focused her Gold Award on minimizing the reading achievement gap caused by a lack of resources for students. To mitigate this gap, she created a lending library at the preschool she had attended as a child. Aranda arranged for the Phoenix Public Library, Bookmans and a Boy Scout troop to donate books to this lending library, making them available in every classroom and giving the children and their families access to books at home, as well as school.

Sierra Aranda

Sierra Aranda

Aranda regularly checks in with the teachers, who say that the children love getting stickers for reading books and many families take advantage of the library.

The Gold Award requires a girl to stretch her skills and step forward as a leader to meet a local or global need and create a sustainable change. In the process, she develops and enhances her own leadership, determination, creativity and confidence.

Completing a Gold Award project usually takes 18 to 24 months and often involves seeking in-kind donations and recruiting volunteers. Gold Awardees distinguish themselves in the college admission process, earn college scholarships and enter the military one rank higher.

Bowman and Aranda were honored at the 2015 Girl Scout Gold Award Celebration on Saturday, March 28 at the Glendale Civic Center.

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