Scholarship Available for Gold Award Recipients
Wilmington College seeks to reward Gold Award recipients from the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio with a $1,500 scholarship that recognizes the leadership skills inherent with that prestigious certification.
PICTURED: From the left are Sarah Kelly, Lissa Brown, WC student Sara Mumford, Paula Chapski and WC's Dennis Kelly.
The College is offering, as part of its aid package for entering students, a bonus to any member of the Girl Scouts who has attained that highest of honors. This is in addition to scholarships, grants and other financial aid for which they may qualify.
The non-renewable financial awards are available to any number of qualified Gold Award recipients each year. Typically, only 6 percent of Girl Scouts attain Gold Award status.
Dennis Kelly, senior vice president/chief enrollment officer, said the new award becomes available for students entering WC beginning the fall 2019 semester. It amounts to $1,000 for any member of the Girls Scouts across the nation who attains the Gold Award and $1,500 for those recipients in the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio.
“The values embraced by the Girl Scouts and especially by those who attain the Gold Award closely match many of Wilmington College’s core values,” Kelly said. “We want to recognize those that espouse such characteristics as excellence, integrity, leadership and service/civic engagement.”
Dennis Kelly formally announced the establishment of the award when the College hosted a recent gathering on campus of officials from the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio, which serves 42,000 girls in a district encompassing 32 counties from Cincinnati to Toledo. They included Lissa Brown, director of regional services; Sarah Kelly, director of programming and partnerships; and Paula Chapski, senior community engagement manager.
In addition, WC sophomore Sara Mumford attended the luncheon as a Gold Award recipient with 13 years in the Girl Scouts. Her accomplishments in Girl Scouts were noted as a key factor being selected for a major scholarship presented to Beavercreek residents attending WC.
Mumford, who is double majoring in criminal justice and equine business management, spoke about her time in Girl Scouts. She fondly recalled, “all the skills, adventures and connections I’ve made.”
Her culminating final project for her Gold Award was designing and implementing a presentation, titled “Bats Matter,” highlighting the great value of bats to the ecosystem. Mumford gave her presentation to numerous Girl Scout troops and at high schools and church events, in addition to spending a summer at Custer State Park in South Dakota, where she enlightened park visitors with regular “bat chats” around a campfire.
“I look back and smile when I think about everything I did in Girl Scouts,” Mumford added. She noted that many of the skills and experiences gained in Scouts are facilitating her success in college — with the expectation those attributes will play positive roles in her future career and life success.
Indeed, the “take action” project is the capstone experience for the 6 percent of Girl Scouts who attain the exclusive Gold Award. Chapski said that, in selecting a project, the girls “reflect upon all they’ve done” in Girl Scouts while first identifying a need or issue in their community and then creating a means for addressing that challenge.
Brown added that, “The girls’ passion really comes out with these projects” as they work to convince a group of eight guiding judges on both the worthiness of the concept and success of its implementation.
Sarah Kelly said Mumford is an exemplar of the quality individuals produced through the Girl Scout Gold Award experience.
“Excellence, integrity, leadership and service are what the Gold Award is all about,” she said. “Our mission in Girl Scouts is to build girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place.
"It’s impressive watching girls like Sara grow over the years.”
