The Gold Award, is the most prestigious achievement within the Girl Scouts of America. Cecilia Parmeter of Proctor, was awarded the highest honor on Sunday October 1st at Forbes United Methodist Church.

Most people might be aware of the Boy Scout equivalent, the Eagle Scout award. However, achieving the Gold Award is just as challenging, if not more so. “It’s a big project. It’s a big task,” Parmeter said. “You have to put in a minimum of 80 hours, find a project that you’re able to do, and relate it to your community, but relate it on a national scale.”

Cecilia Parmeter said she has been involved with theater since the middle school, but she wanted to combine that passion with her Gold Award project. “I focused on the theater and I looked into all of the organization. How we store items and the awareness of our theater, which was our media releases and how our posters are made, everything like that,” Parmeter said.

Cecilia Parmeter also said one of the challenges of receiving the honor of the Gold Award the project needs to have a longstanding impact and continue into the future. “For our sustainability, I made binders for our drama club so that they could do all the media releases,” Parmeter said. “I would hope to think that I’m a good role model. I’ve never really thought of myself that way, just that this was a great opportunity for me to do something to help my community.”

Cecilia’s mom, Kim, said one piece of advice for Girl Scouts thinking about pursuing the Gold Award, is to plan ahead. “There were some tough moments she really contemplated whether or not she wanted to finish it,” Kim Parmeter said. “She’d walk away from it for a while and come back to it and just look at the requirements, make sure she was hitting all of them. But she did it”

Many girls often become discouraged when they’re involved in school clubs or extra-curricular activities it becomes difficult to finish the project during their senior year. Leah Jerzak, Cecilia Parmeter’s Leader of Troop 4026, said even if girls don’t reach the Gold Award, they accomplish plenty of achievements. “We’ve done so many hours of community service and mentoring younger girls. I’m proud of all my girls,,” Jerzak said. “I’m very, very proud to have a Gold Award recipient and represent that here in northern Minnesota.”

For more information about the Girl Scout Gold Award you can look here. For other stories with Girl Scouts you can read more here.