Three students at Alexandria Country Day School have earned the highest Girl Scout Cadette award for their projects addressing bullying, sustainability, charitable giving and animal welfare.
Eighth graders Eleanor Chambers, Sadia Hussain and Cece Baker will be honored during a troop meeting next month for earning the Girl Scout Silver Award. Girl Scout Cadettes in sixth to eighth grade can earn the Silver Award by completing a service project focusing on a community issue.
Chambers’ project, titled “Standing Up to Bullying,” was an educational initiative to reach fourth grade students on recognizing, preventing and responding to bullying. Chambers hosted an interactive workshop with real-world scenarios, discussion prompts and take-home resources.
The eighth grader, who worked with administrators and residents with mental health experience, hopes her resources will be valuable to Alexandria Country Day School in the years to come.
“I learned that I’m capable of leading something bigger than I thought, and that speaking up can really help other people,” Chambers said.
Hussain’s “Every Kid Deserves a Halloween” project sought to address social inequity and environmental waste to help families that cannot afford Halloween costumes for their children. The eighth grader organized a drive, collecting more than 70 gently used costumes from Alexandria Country Day School families.
By encouraging reuse of costumes, Hussain sought to keep items out of landfills.
The distribution was hosted in partnership with Grace Episcopal Church during the church’s food pantry hours. Hussain bagged and labeled each costume by type and size to help families pick out costumes easily.
All of the costumes were given away in one evening. Food pantry staff reported that many of its guests that evening left with costumes and smiles.
“It was fun to help get these used costumes to people who wanted them, while also giving them a second life away from the landfills with a deserving kid,” Hussain said.
Baker’s “Paws for a Cause” project focused on assisting the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, which runs the city’s animal shelter and coordinates pet adoptions. The eighth grader, who chose the project because of her love for animals, worked with the shelter operator to identify donation needs.
Baker collected over 30 towels for the shelter to help with keeping pets clean, warm and comfortable, including pets with cancer that lose their fur. With her project, Baker hopes to draw support from local residents for organizations that care for vulnerable pets and to promote adoptions from animal shelters.
“I enjoyed learning more about the root cause of the issues surrounding animal shelters and what we can do to help,” Baker said.
The students will be also spotlighted by their Girl Scout Service Unit during a Precious Metals Award Ceremony at Alexandria Country Day School near the end of the school year, along with fellow Silver Award winners Ellie Harris, Evelyn Bryan, Abby Michel and Taylor Reynolds.
