Girl Scout season is usually marked by the selling of cookies. However, there are other festivities Girl Scouts engage in.

There are three awards a Girl Scout can obtain: Bronze, Silver and Gold. The bronze award is a project that can be done with a troop to better a part of the community. To achieve this, 20 hours of community service has to be obtained. Troop 2 of Yorba Linda West collected books and donated them to a lower class school, earning them this award.

Next is the Silver Award, which is done in groups of 1-3 to help a specific group of people. This requires 50 hours of community service. Freshmen Kylie Toblesky and Adalantra White along with   a YLHS freshman, Kailie McKinney, achieved this award by volunteering at a senior center and giving them a garden.

At every level (Daisy, Brownie, Junior, Cadette, Senior, Ambassador), 3 books, called journeys, are available, each holding different subjects. The journey that Troop 2 completed was called Sow What, which dealt with healthy living.

“The Gold Award gives our girls the excellent opportunity to use their leadership skills to make a measurable and sustainable change in the lives of those they serve,” said Ann Crane, the Girl Scouts of Orange County Gold Award trainer.

The Gold Award can be achieved by completing the Silver Award and a journey or two journeys. You have until the end of high school to come up with an idea, assemble a team of people who are not girl scouts, and obtain 80 hours.

White said the Gold Award means “helping people and knowing that one person can change another person or a group of peoples lives.”

In order to continue in their journey of agriculture, troop leader Mary McKinney created an idea to make use of the fruit trees growing fruit to waste. She wished to start an organization, allowing members of the society to donate the would be wasted fruit and take it to areas that are in need.

Toblesky said, “I want to do something that involves STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). I also want to be able to benefit the most people in the community.”