Gold Award Girl Scouts
The Girl Scout Gold Award represents the highest achievement in Girl Scouting. This prestigious award challenges Girl Scouts in high school to change the world—or at least their corner of it.
Since 1916, the best and brightest Girl Scouts have undertaken Gold Award projects. We recognize the dedication of these leaders who identified a need in their community, built a team, developed a plan, and took action to improve their communities and beyond.
Congratulations to these Girl Scouts who join a remarkable century-long tradition of leadership:
Brianna Fick
Alyssa Freeman
Imani Gilreath
Gretchen Hunsinger
Kansas Lohmeier
Shradha Mamilla
Bella Martin
Grace Nilson
Thank you to all of our dedicated co-leaders, Project Advisors, Gold Award Committee volunteers, and parents for their invaluable time and dedication to supporting our future leaders. Your commitment makes a lasting impact on the lives of Girl Scouts and their communities!
Pat Meyer Gold Award Girl Scouts of Distinction
Pat Meyer Gold Award Girl Scout of Distinction is awarded to Gold Award Girl Scouts whose final Take Action projects demonstrate extraordinary leadership, address a local challenge that relates to a national and/or global issue, and has a measurable and sustainable impact.
Pat Meyer was a lifelong Girl Scout devoted to supporting girls and helping Girl Scouts earn their Gold Awards. In 2014, the Pat Meyer family created a Girl Scout award in her memory.
Congratulations to this year’s recipients:
Fiona Bryant: Fiona developed voter resources and social media posts for Nebraska libraries to boost voter participation. Her work reached thousands, earning her the Nebraska Library Association’s Outstanding Volunteer Award.
Shradha Mamilla: Shradha created “Project Memoire” as a longterm resource for memory-care facilities and patients. In partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association, she also founded a Youth Advisory Council to empower students to advocate for Alzheimer’s legislation and lead community outreach efforts.
Renee Stehlik: Renee placed mental health resource boxes and uplifting messages at the Meridian Bridge in Yankton, South Dakota. The sites offer a safe, private way to access mental health resources and information.
Brianna Fick
Hometown: Kearney
Parents: Walt and Cecilia Fick
Troop Co-Leaders: Cecilia Fick, Julie Fuqua, and Amy McManus
Project Advisor: Nikki Gausman
S.A.F.E. Center Employee Wellness Program and Family Inspirational Art
Burnout is very common among social workers. With this in mind, Gold Award Girl Scout Brianna Fick created a wellness program for the employees of Kearney’s S.A.F.E. Center (Spouse/ Sexual Abuse Family Education Center) designed to encourage physical, emotional, and mental self-care as well as co-worker support. She also created positive affirmation paintings to hang in the S.A.F.E. Center housing for families.
Brianna’s wellness program included a fitness plan called Tour Nebraska. This collaborative activity for employees tracked their exercise miles virtually to visit sites in Nebraska by six different routes, earning prizes along the way. Brianna provided each employee with a Relax Jar containing 16 simple relaxation exercises that employees can access when work is stressful. She also arranged talks by two professionals on different health topics. All the parts of her program are in the Wellness binder for the future.
For the residents of the rescue housing, Brianna painted 24 paintings with uplifting sayings that will be rotated through the house by the director. These paintings with sayings like “You are enough,” “It’s time to start something new,” and “trust in the power of beginnings” provide messages of self-worth for survivors.
Alyssa Freeman
Hometown: Lincoln
Parents: Jonathan and Jami Freeman
Troop Co-Leaders: Jami Freeman and Addie Lee
Project Advisor: Francesca Rohrs
Different Interests But Still Human
Throughout their lives, many people experience ostracization from others. Inspired by her own experiences, Gold Award Girl Scout Alyssa Freeman decided to focus on when individuals are judged by their peers due to having different interests. To address this issue, Alyssa formed a team of artists and created a children’s book with the intention of educating 3–5 year-old children on the importance of respecting one another’s interests. The book also contained a list of similar books as continued reading for parents, teachers, and kids.
After the book was finished, Alyssa was able to read it aloud to 140 students at Community Action, as well as make the book accessible to the local community through placing physical copies in Little Free Libraries and hang flyers around town advertising the digital version and its translations. Through prior knowledge and access to translation dictionaries, Alyssa was able to produce digital translations of the book in French and Korean in addition to the original English version.
Mental Health Fair
Imani Gilreath
Hometown: Omaha
Parents: LeClara Gilreath and Michael Conley
Project Advisor: Krissy Walsh
There is a huge stigma surrounding mental health for teens. Knowing this, Gold Award Girl Scout Imani Gilreath decided to create a Mental Health Fair. Her goal was to decrease the stigma around mental health by educating adolescents and their adults about suicide awareness and the mental health issues that affect that age group the most. Through her Gold Award project, she was able to educate around 50 people on suicide prevention, mental health issues, signs, symptoms, and ways to help.
To do this, Imani held a youth mental health fair at Zion Baptist Church. She identified the mental health concerns that most affect the targeted age group, coordinated participation of local mental health providers, created informational trifolds on youth mental health concerns, passed out green awareness ribbons, and modeled healthy coping strategies. She also organized a suicide awareness walk to honor those that have died by suicide and support healing.
Gretchen Hunsinger
Hometown: Elkhorn
Parents: Charles and Michelle Hunsinger
Troop Co-Leader: Michelle Hunsinger
Project Advisor: Beth Wells
Energy Store Makeover
Gold Award Girl Scout Gretchen Hunsinger has always held a love for the older people in her life. This passion led her to volunteering weekly at Crown Pointe Retirement Home. There, she noticed activities such as BINGO and movie nights were poorly attended; she also realized that many of the residents were lacking points of connection with each other. She decided she needed to do something to motivate the residents to attend more activities, which would then increase residents’ relationships with each other.
Gretchen decided to renovate an unused room at Crown Pointe into a general store. She painted the room, constructed furniture, and found out exactly what the residents wanted stocked by meeting with them. She created a currency that residents could earn by participating in activities, called “Energy Bucks.”
She was able to stock the store with items from the money she fundraised, but more importantly, was able to give residents with artistic passion a place in the Energy Store to share their work. She has items sewn and painted by current residents on sale alongside the snacks, cards, fun items, and toiletries in the Energy Store.
The project has been a huge success! Since the grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony, activity attendance has exponentially increased.
Kansas Lohmeier
Hometown: Elkhorn
Parent: Lyda Lohmeier
Troop Co-Leader: Michelle Hunsinger
Project Advisor: Lindsay Newton
Elkhorn South Food Bins
Federal law requires students to take a serving of fruits or vegetables with every meal from the cafeteria. Gold Award Girl Scout Kansas Lohmeier saw that perfectly edible food often wound up in the trash can right after checking out. This was disheartening to her knowing that around 1 in 10 Omaha residents experience food insecurity. For her Gold Award project, she sought to mitigate the amount of edible food waste Elkhorn South was producing by introducing the Food Bins. Atop each trash receptacle in the cafeteria, there is now a bin collecting unwanted food items. By partnering with a perishable food rescue program and cafeteria staff, the food is picked up twice per week and redistributed to locations in need across Omaha and Council Bluffs. Overstock food from behind the counter, such as frozen pizzas and burger patties, are also donated.
To educate her community about this project, she presented to Green Omaha Coalition and her student body, mailed an informational newsletter to each high school in Omaha, and started a grant for similar programs at other schools. Kansas has also been volunteering with Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue to create online educational videos on how to reduce food waste in schools and at home.
Since mid-November, over 2,000 pounds of food have been collected and donated.
Project Memoire
Shradha Mamilla
Hometown: Omaha
Parents: Mrudula and Sunil Mamilla
Troop Co-Leader: Heidi Hirschbach
Project Advisor: Dolores Clarke
Connection is the foundation of dignity, especially for those facing memory loss. Gold Award Girl Scout Shradha Mamilla created “Project Memoire,” a memory-enhancing initiative designed to support individuals with dementia through customized memory kits, therapeutic garden boxes, and engagement. Her goal was to create meaningful moments for nursing home residents while educating and empowering youth to take part in Alzheimer’s advocacy.
Through her project, Shradha assembled and distributed memory kits tailored to individual life stories, organized BINGO nights to spark joy and connection, and installed sensoryfriendly garden beds to offer calming outdoor experiences. She also founded a Youth Advisory Council in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association, giving students a platform to volunteer, advocate, and lead community outreach efforts. She helped mobilize students across the state to participate in advocacy events and service projects. Through this council, she played an active role in legislative efforts, helping champion the passage of bills like Nebraska’s LB253, which expands access to early detection and biomarker testing for Alzheimer’s.
To ensure long-term impact, she created a toolkit on YouTube that includes memory kit templates, youth volunteer guides, and caregiver activity ideas, which is now being used in local care facilities.
Bella Martin
Hometown: Bellevue
Parents: Courtney and Jeremy Martin
Troop Co-Leader: Maria Rieter
Project Advisor: Katheryn Rice
Outdoor Music Garden
Gold Award Girl Scout Bella Martin and her team created four different instruments for her Outdoor Music Garden. These instruments included a color-coded PVC pipe xylophone, a chime pillar, a set of tube drums, and a textured woodblock. All these instruments were hand-made by Bella and her team. Her goal was to foster and support interest in music within her community. Her life was forever changed from her experience in the Bellevue West marching band, which led her to her project.
Having this Music Garden will provide education, entertainment, and team building skills for all who use it. The main educational instrument is the PVC pipe xylophone. By following along with the music provided through the QR code, children work on their hand-eye coordination by hitting the corresponding colored pipes. The songs provided demonstrate the chords of the song instead of the melody line. Playing the chords of songs teaches them to listen to other supporting melodies. Another instrument she created was the chime pillar. This instrument has eight windchimes attached to a wooden pole. She also created four different sized tube drums to be hit with the user’s hands. Finally, she created a textured woodblock to show how different textures can create different sounds.
Grace Nilson
Hometown: Omaha
Parent: Beth Nilson
Project Advisor: Lindsey Nesselrotte
Building a Future in Robotics
Despite the rapid growth of technology careers, girls remain underrepresented in STEM, often losing interest as early as middle school. Recognizing this gap, Gold Award Girl Scout Grace Nilson created a sustainable initiative to expand access to Girl Scout Robotics badges by addressing key barriers of cost, confidence, and resources faced by many troops.
Grace raised money to purchase VEX GO robotics kits and tablets for programming, which are now housed at the Omaha Girl Scout DreamLab and available to co-leaders at no cost, removing a major financial obstacle. To further support volunteers, she developed a comprehensive, easy-to-use robotics curriculum aligned with Girl Scouts of the USA badge requirements, including an interactive Google Slides presentation and detailed written guides with embedded videos, vocabulary, and step-by-step instructions.
Through two hands-on workshops, Grace trained ten troop co-leaders who reported significantly increased confidence and the intention to use robotics with their troops, impacting up to 99 girls. By equipping co-leaders and council staff with lasting resources, this project creates long-term access to robotics education and empowers more girls to see themselves as future engineers and innovators.