Bellmore, Merrick girls awarded Girl Scouts highest honor

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Girl Scouts of Nassau County recently presented the Gold Award, the organization’s highest honor, to Melissa Berman, of the Bellmore Association, and Emily D'Antonio and Seabrook Kilfoil-Greaves, both of the Merrick Association, during a ceremony hosted at Adelphi University.

The Gold Award program recognizes the power and dedication shared by an elite group of young women who earn the highest honor a Girl Scout can achieve. Berman spent more than 80 hours over the past year planning, executing and presenting the results of her project, which aimed to make the world a better place for others as well as herself.

"We are extremely proud to celebrate so many local young women earning the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award," said Donna Ceravolo, Executive Director and CEO of the Girl Scouts of Nassau County. "On average, only five percent of eligible Girl Scouts successfully earn the Gold Award, making these girls part of an exclusive group of women with the tools to become leaders in the 21st century."

Combining her passion for theater and her love for working with children, Berman created mini theatre produc¬tions at her local sleepaway camp, Greenwood Trails. Through her project, Stars of Geenwood Trails, she helped children ages 8 to 16 put together theatre pro¬ductions that enhanced their acting, singing, and dancing skills, hoping to inspire children to express their creativ¬ity. Berman scripted scenes and created choreography that they performed at the end of the summer. The campers were able to showcase their talents in front of their friends and counselors. Berman documented all the performances on her YouTube channel, Greenwood Trails.

Berman recently completed her freshman year of college at Hofstra University, where she is studying broadcast journalism and drama. She is a member of the Pep Band and actively involved with their award-winning radio station WRHU. Her fondest Girl Scout memory goes back to when she was a Daisy, selling cookies at booth sales. She is now a lifetime member.

D’Antonio chose to learn about the environment and help in the battle against pollution through her project, Never Let Me Go: The Story of the Red Balloon. With the hope of teaching children more about pollution and how it affects the environment, she created a children's book. After writing, illustrating and publishing her book, she was able to share it with her community. Copies of D’Antonio’s book were sold to a local organization, Operation Splash, to help educate children on the marine environment. Operation Splash will continue to use the book as part of their educational programs. She also created a video of her reading the book aloud, which has been posted to YouTube for all to watch.

Through her project, Hop Through Cultures, Kilfoil-Greaves helped children understand the importance of daily exercise, while teaching them about different cultures. Aware that children are becoming less likely to play outside due to distractions like technology, Kilfoil-Greaves wanted to create a workshop that highlighted the importance of staying fit. Working with several day care centers she was able to teach children how to play hopscotch from different countries around the world. She created an instructional guide for the daycare centers to follow and donated two permanent hopscotch boards to the GG Daycare in Freeport.

Gold Award projects have positively impacted girls' lives, their communities and the world for more than 100 years. Approximately 1 million Girl Scout alumnae have developed Gold Award projects that addressed local or global issues. After identifying an area of interest, a successful Gold Award recipient performs hours of research and prepares a project proposal to be submitted for feedback and approval to their Girl Scouts Council before embarking on her project. The Girl Scout presents her final conclusions as the last step of the journey.

Lifelong value comes with having earned a Gold Award. According to the Girl Scout Research Institute, Gold Award recipients display more positive life outcomes pertaining to sense of self, life, satisfaction, leadership, life success, community service and civic engagement. Recipients of the award who enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces may receive advanced rank for their achievements and can receive scholarships or other recognition from most colleges or universities.