Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson, Inc. (GSHH) proudly recognizes the seventy (70) members of the 2025 Girl Scout Gold Award class who earned the highest award in Girl Scouting, the Gold Award. Gold Award Girl Scouts make positive impacts on our local communities by addressing some of our most pressing issues, including mental health, eating disorders, endangered wildlife, food insecurity, and more.
Gold Award Girl Scouts become innovative problem-solvers, empathetic leaders, confident public speakers, and focused project managers. They learn resourcefulness, tenacity, and decision-making skills, giving them an edge personally and professionally. As they take action to transform their communities, Gold Award Girl Scouts gain tangible skills and prove they’re the leaders our world needs. The 2025 Gold Award Girl Scout class identified issues in their communities, took action, and found or created solutions to earn their Gold Awards, addressing real-life problems.
During a ceremony held on Saturday, June 7 at the Muriel H. Morabito Community Center in Cortlandt Manor, GSHH’s CEO, Dr. Kari L. Rockwell honored the Gold Award Girl Scouts in attendance, saying: “As the highest award in Girl Scouting, the Gold Award marks the culmination of an exceptional project demonstrating leadership, responsibility, and the commitment to making the world a better place for all people. The young women who have earned their Gold Award have embraced the Girl Scout Promise and Law and have put these words into action. They are strong, courageous, and accomplished young women who are the heroes of today and the future leaders of tomorrow. Your achievement in earning the highest award in Girl Scouting cements your place in history as part of this 113-year-old organization, and the realization of Girl Scout founder, Juliette Gordon Low’s, dreams.”
The 2025 Gold Award Girl Scouts demonstrate the breadth of issues American teens feel are most prevalent in society today. The topics of GSHH’s Gold Award projects ranged from raising awareness about personal causes like Juvenile Diabetes and family health problems, to addressing economic disparities they observe in their lives and communities.
According to recent research, Gold Award Girl Scouts are more likely to fill leadership roles at work and in their personal lives and are more civically engaged than their non-Girl Scout peers. Eighty-seven percent (87%) of Gold Award Girl Scouts agree that earning their Gold Award gave them skills that help them succeed professionally. Seventy-two percent (72%) said earning their Gold Award helped them get a scholarship. Changing the world doesn’t end when a Girl Scout earns her Gold Award. Ninety-nine percent (99%) of Gold Award Girl Scout alums take on leadership roles in their everyday lives.
This year, Girl Scouts of the USA awarded a scholarship to one Gold Award Girl Scout from each council across the Movement. This year, GSHH’s recipient of the $5,000 scholarship is Mary Elizabeth Wilantewicz a senior in high school from Dutchess County. Mary Elizabeth’s project, “Memory Care Sensory Room” aims to improve symptoms of and slow cognitive decline in dementia patients through multisensory activities and ‘life stations.’ Her project was so successful that it has become a model for other Memory Care sensory rooms.
