As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scout Gold Award in 2016, we’re recognizing all the amazing women who earned Girl Scouts’ highest award. Want to share your story? Take our Girl Scout alumnae survey.
Suzanne Le Menestrel is a firm believer in the power of every girl. To earn her Gold Award in 1979, she set up a high adventure obstacle course at a local Girl Scout camp and developed an outdoor education curriculum, showcasing how girls can gain confidence through experiences in the outdoors. The skills she gained from her project helped her on the journey to success when went on to complete her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies. Today, Suzanne is as a study director at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and a proud Girl Scout parent and troop leader.
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Today a nuclear engineer, Girl Scout alumna Frances Sutherland says s
he has Girl Scouts to thank for sparking an interest in STEM. To earn her Gold Award in 2006, Frances learned how to write HTML code and created a website for a local non-profit. A scholarship she received from the Council funded her books during her first semester at the University of Maryland, where she studied civil and environmental engineering. “My time in Girl Scouts helped me gain the confidence I would need to be an effective as an engineer in the male-dominated nuclear industry,” Frances said.
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