Natalie “Talie” Arner of Nesquehoning recently achieved the highest award a Girl Scout can achieve in her career, the Gold Award.

The award, according to Girl Scouts, is stated to be “earned by a select group of Girl Scouts who demonstrate a higher commitment to improving communities and advocating for lasting change.”

As each Girl Scout must choose a project in which they showcase their commitment to improving their community, Arner chose to think local and simple.

Her mother, Pamela, and herself thought to paint and refurbish bus stop shelters around Carbon County.

“Her logic was that by fixing the shelters students stand in each day, it would help the self esteem of the students standing in them” Pamela said.

As soon as the higher Girl Scout commission approved the project in the summer of 2018, they began working.

By the end of 2019, eight out of 13 shelters were touched up, painted and in some cases, completely refurbished and renewed. The commission board only required five shelters to be done.

Throughout the process, Talie had help from her community in completing the project.

Milan Printing in Jim Thorpe helped with her envelopes when she did a mail-in fundraiser campaign, while Joe and Pat Arieta, owners of Nesquehoning’s True Value, donated bags of mulch and paint.

Although she had help from bigger businesses, as well as local individuals that decided to chip in their time, effort and resources, Talie and her mother also did their share of buying brushes, paint and tools required for restoring school bus shelters in the area.

Deb Kleckner, executive officer of Carbon Builders Association, was asked early on to help in the process. Kleckner played an imperative role in applying for the proper zoning permits, as well as creating agreements with the HOA or property owners where the bus shelters were located.

Kleckner decided that the project was worth putting in the effort.

“What (Talie) has done is highly commendable … not only did she paint, but she also fixed and repaired,” Kleckner said. “(Carbon Builders Association) is very proud of everything she’s done with the project.”

CBA also decided to grant Talie a $400 check in addition to an award that was presented to her last Tuesday.

In receiving the Golden Award from Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania, an award and check for Civic Commitment from CBA, as well as graduating from Panther Valley and Lehigh Carbon Community College in the same year, Talie says she believes everything she’s done up to this point has been worth it.

While Talie will attend DeSales University, she still plans to continue in her Girl Scout career as she’s been doing for over 13 years. Even if she isn’t able to participate as much, she wants to pass down the tradition of refurbishing school bus stops in Carbon County.

Talie and Pamela have put together packets to pass along to brownie and Junior Girl Scouts for next year in hopes one of them takes over the project to keep Carbon county looking good as well as the students of Panther Valley feeling self-confident.

“Environment is everything,” Pamela said. “You can’t go out and make something of yourself if you don’t feel good about yourself first.”

Kleckner and Pamela said how proud they are of Talie and both hope the tradition of upkeeping Carbon County’s shelters continues for years to come.