Camryn Kimura is 16 years old and attends high school in Coronado.

Her story…

When most people hear about Girl Scouts they typically picture an elementary school girl, wearing a blue or green vest, on their doorstep selling Thin Mints or Tagalongs.

Although every Girl Scout may have been that little cookie-selling girl at some point, most Girl Scouts grow into so much more than most people realize, becoming volunteers and leaders for girls in their communities. I joined Girl Scouts in kindergarten. Now a junior in high school, having been a Girl Scout for all but one year of my school career.

I have learned what it means to be a strong, female leader and have gained valuable life skills that will stick with me forever. In Girl Scouts, we volunteer to support our community in any way we possibly can. From hosting Girl Scout events to working at the Food Bank to buying presents for families that cannot afford gifts during the winter holiday seasons. My Girl Scout has worked to become leaders of the community and strive to make the world a better place. Our troop shrunk in size over the years, decreasing to just nine cadets, but our goals and plans to make a positive impact on our society have only started to blossom.

In 2016 to 2017, my troop completed our Silver Award Project for Monarch School in San Diego. Dividing into groups of three, each team had specific items they aimed to collect and donate to the school for homeless children. One group collected Halloween costumes and another collected money for prom shoes, while my group was in charge of collecting various toiletries for the children and their families. We spent our time at Rite Aid with a collection bin, receiving both new toiletries products as well as monetary donations. After organizing the collected and purchased toiletries, we brought the boxes of donations to the school. My team realized the worthwhile effect of our drive on the underprivileged students. Just in the 8^th grade, I truly began to grasp how important it is to give back to the community.

In 2019, we hosted a Valentine’s Day event for the younger Girl Scouts to show them the importance of loving one another and themselves. We set up stations that each girl visited and participated in activities with their peers. These stations, including the trust station, female superhero station, compliment station, and cookie-decorating station, all focused on self-love, supporting your friends and peers, and female empowerment. Befriending the younger girls, we became leaders and role models to them. Our event did not only teach our attendees but taught us so much.

Currently, my troop has been working on our individual Gold Award projects. The Gold Award is a project that each Girl Scout works to help solve or fix an issue of their choosing. My project started in July of 2019 and focuses on the health of those with congestive heart failure (CHF) through ultrasound. Dreaming to be a doctor almost as long as I have been a Girl Scout, I knew I wanted to dedicate my project to helping patients.

Through making an instructional video and pamphlet, my project will teach recently discharged CHF patients to image using ultrasound. This will help keep them in touch with doctors from home rather than going to the hospital, which is very difficult for the majority of the discharged patient.

The kits, including the video, pamphlet, and ultrasound device, will be my project to helping patients. Through making an instructional video and pamphlet, my project will teach recently discharged CHF patients to image using ultrasound. This will help keep them in touch with doctors from home rather than going to the doctor’s office.

The kit, including the video, pamphlet, and ultrasound device, will be checked out to the patients to image themselves at home and send the image to their doctor.

I’m still working on this project, having completed the video (script, filming, and editing) in the process of creating the pamphlet, and hope to be completed by the summer of 2020.

Girl Scouts has taught me more than I realize and have helped define who I am today. I am so grateful to be part of an organization that followed me as I grew up and taught me leadership, kindness, responsibility, respect, and strength. Girl Scouts showed me, and girls nationwide, that we should be ourselves and we can accomplish anything we set our minds to. So next time that young Girl Scout comes to your door asking if you would like to buy a box of Samoas or Trefoils, just know that she has so much more planned for the future.

Camryn would like her charity award money to be given to the Girl Scouts.