About 27,000 girls are in the Hoosier Capital Council of Girl Scouts of America, which includes Indianapolis. But only 10 percent of them are over age 11.

At that age, "they're entering middle school, and they have more opportunities," said Laura Foshee, the council's chief operating officer, adding that some girls' attitude toward scouts becomes "already done that."

But Girl Scouts offers a lot to those ages 5 to 17. Founded in 1912 to teach girls how to enjoy the outdoors and be good citizens, Girl Scouts now offers older girls opportunities for self-development, community service and career exploration. The highest levels they can achieve are Silver and Gold awards. But it takes time and commitment, and not all girls stay long enough to earn them.

Y-Press recently talked to seven girls who have. Liz Davis, 19, Kati Garringer-Maccabe, 17, and Stefanie Neumeyer, 18, earned both awards, while Kristen Van Wyk, 15, Ellen Zemlin, 15, Amanda Donahue, 14, and Ashley Pasch, 15, have finished their silver and are working on the gold. All but Amanda have been in the program since age 5 or 6.

The Silver Award is the highest for Cadette scouts, generally 11 to 14 years old. It requires improving personal and leadership skills, investigating career options and serving the community. The biggest requirement, however, is designing and carrying out a Silver Award project, which can be done individually or as a troop, but requires each girl to contribute at least 30 hours of service.

Similarly, the Gold Award is the highest award for Senior scouts, generally 14 to 17 years old. It also includes career exploration and leadership training, and it culminates in a community service project requiring at least 50 hours of work. One difference: The Gold Award project is usually carried out by a single scout.

"Out of my troop, I was the only one that earned it because (my troop leader) pretty much left us to do it by ourselves," Stefanie said. "There was a lot of preparation, a lot of filling out of forms, a lot of monitoring and observation."

Both Gold and Silver award projects must be service-related.

Liz, a freshman at Indiana University, created a songbook and compact disc of Girl Scout songs for urban Girl Scout troops. "I was just seeing that inner-city troops really struggle to find leaders. . . . (Moms) don't really know what to do because they themselves weren't in troops when they were growing up."

Liz also went to Girl Scout summer camp and videotaped action songs so new leaders could pass on that tradition. "I made three copies of it that are now in the Hoosier Council library, so leaders can check them out."

Stefanie, who is now studying human resource management at IUPUI, focused her project on unemployed adults.

"I held a clothing drive at my church to gather nice-looking business attire," she said. "I held workshops to teach people, especially people who are unemployed, how to handle interviews correctly, how to maintain a job, how to fill out resumes, how to fill out applications."

Kati's project was a safety fair for children in her area "because I like working with kids," the Ben Davis High School senior said.

"I had a lot of different exhibits and booths, and a lot of souvenirs for them to take home -- coloring books and stickers and magnets. . . . I think it was really fun," she added.

Patriotism workshop

The Silver Award project isn't as intense. Kristen, a sophomore at Westfield High School, did a patriotism workshop for younger scouts at Camp Hawthorne Trails.

"They wrote letters to the Air Force, and they made five-point stars, and they played games that were popular like in the 1800s in America," she said. "And we also did a flag retirement ceremony."

Ellen, who is home-schooled, created a workbook about horses for younger Girl Scouts. Ashley and Amanda, both freshmen at Decatur Central High School, joined with other troop members to rehabilitate the nature center at Camp Dellwood on the city's Westside. "It was really bad and really old and kind of falling apart," said Amanda.

Along the way, each project ran into its own kind of problem.

Kristen showed up at camp to find the flagpole was broken. "They just held the flag up, and we said the Pledge of Allegiance and did the flag ceremony that way," she said.

Sometimes the scouts needed help. Someone at Liz's church helped her edit the videotape. Ashley turned to her dad for construction advice. "We had never been taught how to properly nail the wood," she said.

For Gold Award recipients, the biggest challenge was staying organized and finding enough time. All agreed it was worth the effort.

"All the guys in my family were Boy Scouts, and they have their Eagle awards. I wanted to match that," said Liz. "It was kind of fun to have your core group of friends that you've been with since you were little."

The girls also received a lot of positive feedback.

"I've gotten a lot of thank-you notes and cards and comments and calls and that sort of thing from people within my council, both girls and their leaders," Kati said.

Stefanie's project had a huge impact on at least one woman.

"She was unemployed for a while and her unemployment was running out, and she had quite a few kids, and she hadn't been able to find a job in I think almost six months," she said.

"After taking my workshops -- I held three, and she went to all three of them -- she called me probably about a couple of weeks after the last workshop, and she told me she found a job."

The girls agreed Girl Scouts helps you make friends and improve your skills -- and it looks good on college applications.

Besides, "I just wanted to do it. Girl Scouts is where I got my interest in horseback riding," said Ellen.

"It's given me a lot of neat opportunities," added Kati. "Getting my Silver and Gold awards has been like one of my biggest accomplishments, so I would tell any girl out there to go for it."

REPORTERS: Amber Gray, 13; Mark Nishio, 11.

_________________________________________________

Who we are

Y-Press is a nonprofit news organization with offices in The Indianapolis Star building. Stories are researched, reported and written by teams of young people ages 10 to 18. For more information, call (317) 444-2010 or send an e-mail to ypress@in.net.

Go online for more

Scholastic competitions: If you want to read more about this topic from a child's perspective, check out www.ypress.org. Y-Press also invites students' response to a poll question and wants your comments about student-written movie and book reviews.