Four Jim Thorpe Girl Scouts from Girl Scout Troop 30470 earned the highest honor a Girl Scout Junior can achieve, the Girl Scout Bronze Award.

Lillian Davies, 12, Nicole Mack, 12, Elizabeth McGee, 12, and Mikayla Serrano, 12, worked to complete the requirements needed to earn their Bronze Awards.

The girls, along with the rest of the Junior Girl Scouts in their troop, worked to complete a Girl Scout Journey, which is a multi-session experience in which girls dig deeper into their interests and use the skills they gain along the way to make a difference in their community.

At the completion of this journey, each Junior Girl Scout earned three leadership awards.

Their journey, Get Moving, consisted of a yoga session and a sound energy activity.

The yoga session allowed the girls to work as a team, both physically and mentally, and taught them strength, concentration, discipline, and how to manage emotions.

The sound energy activity involved the girls using various objects such as singing bowls, percussion wooden frogs, ocean drums, and animal skin drums to create, hear, and feel the vibrations caused by these distinct objects.

After receiving their leadership awards, all four Girl Scouts began to think of a project that could make a difference in their community. They created a list of various project ideas, narrowed it down to two, and had to get approval from Girl Scout Council before they could begin.

Lillian, Elizabeth, and Nicole took notice that feminine hygiene companies do not donate items to the schools like they used to and thought it would be a great idea to have hygiene kits available.

Together, they came up with “Operation Period Pack.”

The girls created 100 period packs to donate to Lawrence B Morris Elementary School’s Pre-Adolescent Development class.

The packs consisted of pads, wet wipes, and hand sanitizer.

Mikayla wanted to help those in the community by providing everyday necessities such as food and hygiene products. She created an Amazon wish list of items that she needed to start her project.

After receiving the donations, Mikayla was able to create 100 “Blessing Bags” containing razors, toothbrushes, shampoo, granola bars, crackers, candies, etc.

Every day, for almost an entire week, Mikayla took the time to organize and fill these bags after school.

VALOR Clinic Foundation, who provides assistance to Veterans, received a donation of 75 Blessing Bags.

Family Promise of Carbon County, who helps low-income families and those experiencing homelessness, received a donation of 25 Blessing Bags.

After fulfilling their projects, the girls had to write a final report describing each step they took from start to finish.

The report was based on their observations, who they talked to, what they learned, and what this project taught them. They discussed how their ideas helped the community, how they helped each other during the projects, and made a list of what skills they learned along the way.

Upon completing their Girl Scout Bronze Award adventure, which took about eight months, the girls submitted their final report to Girl Scouts Heart of Pennsylvania.

In early October, the girls received confirmation that they earned their Girl Scout Bronze Award.

Girl Scout Troop 30470 is proud of their accomplishments and will be celebrating as a group on Jan. 7, 2023.