Manlius Resident Receives National Girl Scout Scholarship for Exceptional Gold Award Project
August 07, 2024
Syracuse, N.Y. (August 7, 2024) – Each year, the Girl Scouts of NYPENN Pathways (GSNYPENN) Council’s charter organization, Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), awards one member of the Gold Award Girl Scout Class from each of its 111 councils nationwide a special scholarship for take action projects that exemplify core components of the Gold Award and demonstrate extraordinary leadership to drive lasting change in the world.
GSNYPENN is proud to announce that Gold Award Girl Scout Olivia Barnhart of Manlius, N.Y., is the council’s recipient of the 2024 GSUSA Gold Award Scholarship for her outstanding community-based project, “Informing and Educating My Community on Mental Health and the Resources Available.”
Olivia, a June 2024 graduate of Fayetteville-Manlius High School, was awarded $5,000 to help defray her college costs.
“Thirteen years in Girl Scouts has shown me how to embody empathy, contribute to the greater good of the world and maintain a strong work ethic,” says Olivia.
Nationally, GSUSA recognized close to 3,000 members of the 2024 Gold Award Girl Scout Class who contributed more than a quarter of a million hours and invested over $1.6M toward creating take action projects with long-term solutions to community issues they’re passionate about including education, children’s issues, health, environment and sustainability, life skills and more.
Olivia’s Gold Award project addressed the stigma around mental health and the lack of knowledge of mental health services in her community by making support materials and resources more obtainable. She worked closely with her Gold Award project advisor William DeSantis, a mental health educator through Contact Community Services at F-M Schools. Her target audience was middle-high school students and families in her school district and the wider community.
L-R: GSNYPENN Girl Scout alum and F-M graduate Olivia Barnhart and her
Gold Award project advisor William DeSantis, a mental health educator at F-M Schools
Olivia offered her audience mental health support by creating a pamphlet and an accompanying online document. Her pamphlet outlined healthy ways for students to cope with stress and her online document summarized mental health resources available on her school district’s website and through Onondaga County.
Olivia made her materials accessible to the community by tabling at school events including freshman parent orientation night and the high school’s open house and activities fair. To help reduce peer pressure and further destigmatize mental health, she also distributed Pura Vida mental health awareness bracelets and had honest discussions with her peers and fellow students.
“Through my Gold Award project, my leadership, communication and multitasking abilities strengthened. Girl Scouts has prepared me for the next chapter of my life by shaping me into the person I am today and allowing me to build lifelong connections I'll rely on moving forward,” says Olivia.
“The Gold Award is one of the highest honors our Girl Scouts can achieve, through which they address issues that today’s teenagers feel are most prevalent in our world,” says GSNYPENN CEO Julie Dale. “We are incredibly proud of Olivia and her accomplishments.”
GSUSA CEO Bonnie Barczykowski wrote in Olivia’s official scholarship notification letter, “Your accomplishments will endure for generations to come and serve as a powerful example of Girl Scouting in action.”
GSNYPENN Girl Scout alum and F-M graduate Olivia Barnhart’s
mental health awareness support materials and tabling set-up
Girl Scouts who earn the Gold Award find meaningful ways to address some of the most pressing issues facing their communities, act on issues they are passionate about and discover they have the power to create the future they want. Less than six percent of Girl Scout Seniors (grades 9-10) and Ambassadors (grades 11-12) earn the Gold Award. Above all else, the achievement exemplifies to Girl Scouts the difference one person can make and how dreaming big can effect change.
To learn more about the Gold Award and GSUSA’s 2024 Gold Award Girl Scout Scholarship recipients, including Olivia, visit girlscouts.org/goldawardclass.
GSNYPENN serves Girl Scouts in grades K-12 across 26 counties: Allegany, Broome, Cayuga, Chemung, Chenango, Cortland, Delaware, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, Ontario, Oswego, Otsego, St. Lawrence, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins, Wayne and Yates in New York and Bradford and Tioga in Pennsylvania. Annual membership is just $25; financial assistance is available. To start your Girl Scouts adventure, visit gsnypenn.org/join. To become an adult volunteer, learn more at gsnypenn.org/volunteer. To help make Girl Scouting possible in your community, visit gsnypenn.org/donate.
