SYV Star Intern

Local Girl Scout Sarah Donahue has earned her Gold Award, the top honor in Girl Scouting, by performing more than 100 hours of service to make beds for cats and dogs at the local animal shelter.

Sarah, 17, is a senior at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School and has been part of Girl Scout Troop 50876 since she was in kindergarten. She has participated in many events with Girl Scouts, including trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Disneyland as well as charitable events.

 “It’s been a huge part of my life,” she said. “We’ve done so many trips, and I’ve loved every aspect of it.”

She earned her Bronze Award in elementary school by spending 20 hours making cat toys for the local Humane Society. She later earned her Silver Award after spending 50 hours knitting hats to donate.

“It’s been an adventure,” she said, and also fun.

Moving on to the Gold Award, Sarah decided to make pet beds out of new or lightly used crew-neck sweatshirts and donate them to the Santa Ynez Valley Humane Society shelter in Buellton. She was inspired by a “kindness project” she had participated in during seventh grade, when she learned how to make these pet beds.

“I really enjoyed making the beds and playing with the animals that are in need of help,” she added.

As part of the project, she hosted two events for volunteers to help her stuff and sew the beds. After 117 hours, she and her 20 helpers had made 31 beds to donate. She dropped them off at the animal shelter at the end of July.

“The joy on the (Humane Society) volunteers’ faces when getting new items for the animals and watching them immediately put the beds in the cages with the animals was a very good experience,” Sarah said.

With this project, she said, she wanted to emphasize the importance of helping animals in need, an issue that is important to her.

“I think it’s important for people to realize that these animals need as much help as they can get,” she said. “Although they are being taken care of by the Humane Society, they need love and people to play with them.”

Sarah is just one of many local Girl Scouts to earn her Gold Award. It requires at least 100 hours of service and encourages girls to make a change that has a lasting impact on an issue that is important to them. It can also help Girl Scouts build community, stand out in college applications and learn valuable life skills.

To learn more about the award, visit www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/highest-awards/gold-award.html.

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Santa Ynez Valley Girl Scout Troops have been busy bringing joy to people of all ages this holiday season.

The troops, directed by Jan King, have teamed up for the past three years to make Christmas stockings for Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. Every December, the hospital gives parents of newborns a stocking to bring their infants home in. Three years ago, the group that was making the stockings could no longer continue, so King took on the project and asked the Girl Scouts to assist. Each October, the troops get together to glue together more than 150 stockings.

At the same time, the Girl Scouts write Christmas wishes in cards to be delivered to residents in the Ranch Club Mobile Estates in Buellton.

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Nicole Bastanchury, a senior at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School and a member of local Troop 50173, has earned her Gold Award, the highest achievement in Girl Scouting.

For her Gold Award project, Nicole created a multi-tiered sewing project called “Back to the Basics,” to introduce the “lost art” of sewing to both girls and boys while paying tribute to her grandmother, who is a member of a sewing circle.

The aim was to create beautiful dresses that were then donated to local homeless shelters, as well as internationally for those in need.

Nicole started by collecting new and gently used pillowcases for a workshop she hosted last summer at The Creation Station in Buellton. The workshop was intended to teach both girls and boys basic sewing skills. Community volunteers taught the students how to hand-sew buttons and use a basic stitch on a sewing machine to create dresses from the pillowcases collected.

“I had a lot of support from my family, my friends, and my two other sister troops,” Nicole said.

The goal was to make 150 dresses to be donated. In all, 159 dresses were donated to the Little Dresses for Africa Organization (LDFAO), Transition House in Santa Barbara, and victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Sending the dresses to Texas was not part of the original plan, but she said she was extremely happy to know she could play a small part in helping those affected by the natural disaster.

“My Gold Award project was aimed to help those less fortunate than myself,” Nicole said.  “I wanted young girls to have an item of clothing that can define their personalities and improve their confidence. I hope that each time the girls wear their dress, it puts a smile on their faces.

“Not only did my project help these girls, but we were also able to reuse pillowcases that would be thrown away, and instead create beautiful dresses from them,” she added. “I also wanted to bring back the lost trade of sewing, by hand and machine. Being able to teach young girls and boys sewing is something they can take with them in the future.”

The Girl Scout Gold Award is a national award with high standards to elevate a girl’s leadership skills, creativity, and efforts to make the world a better place. Earning the Gold Award requires spending at least 80 hours planning and implementing a challenging, large-scale project that is innovative, engages others, and has a lasting impact on its targeted community.

The prestigious award recognizes Senior and Ambassador Girl Scouts — girls in ninth through 12th grades — for outstanding accomplishments in leadership, community service, career planning and personal development.

“This entire process has been so rewarding,” Nicole added.

Nationwide, only 6 percent of all eligible Girl Scouts achieve the Gold Award. Approximately one million Girl Scouts have earned their Gold Award or its equivalent since 1916. Girls who earn their Girl Scout Gold Award automatically enter the military one rank higher and qualify for college scholarships and additional national service awards.

For more information on Girl Scouts, visit www.girlscoutsccc.org.

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This year’s season for selling Girl Scout Cookies, which runs through March 11, features the return of S’mores, the most popular flavor ever launched in the 101 years of Girl Scout Cookies.

Through the sales program, girls learn entrepreneurial and business skills while earning money to fund their activities. Almost a million Girl Scouts nationwide participate in the cookie program each year, generating nearly $800 million in sales during the average season.

“As girls participate in the iconic Girl Scout Cookie Program, they are part of the largest girl-led entrepreneurial program in the world while learning to take the lead and make an impact in their communities,” said Girl Scouts of California’s Central Coast CEO Jody Skenderian. “Furthermore, when Girl Scouts sell cookies, they’re learning to speak up; gaining confidence and practicing everyday life skills that will benefit them for years. When you buy a box of cookies, you’re helping girls be successful in life.”

All of the net revenue raised through the Girl Scout Cookie Program stays with the local council and troops. Councils use cookie earnings to fund experiences for girls through their programming, while girls and their troops decide how to invest in effective community projects or personal enrichment opportunities.

Further, the skills girls learn in the cookie program also influence later success: 57 percent of Girl Scout alumnae in business say the cookie program was beneficial to skills they possess today, such as money management, goal-setting and public speaking.

This year, girls will sell cookies door-to-door and at booths, as well as through Smart Cookie, an educational web-based app that helps girls run and manage their sales online. Through secure login, girls can create and manage their sales on the go.

On National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend, from Feb. 23-25, Girl Scout councils across the country will host events and set up booths for cookie enthusiasts to join in on the fun.

To find cookie varieties available locally, visit www.girlscoutcookies.org. To join or volunteer, visit www.girlscouts.org/join and www.girlscouts.org/volunteer.

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Local Girl Scout and Santa Ynez Valley Union High School senior Madison Gann has set out to help the environment through her Gold Award project “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” by making reusable bags out of gently used t-shirts. She is currently collecting shirts of any color and size at locations around the valley.

“The goal of my Gold Award project is to help our community limit the use of hazardous plastic bags in the community and help the environment in a fun easy way,” shared Gann.

Gann has worked with the Buellton Rec Summer Camp and other local Girl Scouts to make more than 100 bags thus far. She plans on distributing the reusable bags at Solvang’s Farmer’s Market in the Fall.

Gann has also created a Youtube video on how people can make their own reusable t-shirt bags as part of her project. The video can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xD6EFi5SFU&feature=youtu.be

Shirt collection boxes can be found at the Buellton Rec Department, New Frontier’s Marketplace and the Buellton Library through the end of the month.

For more information, contact Madison Gann at gann.madison@gmail.com.

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By Victoria Martinez

Nicole Bastanchury plans on using the donated pillowcases to make dresses to a variety of charitable organizations.
Photo contributed

Nicole Bastanchury, an incoming senior at Santa Ynez Valley High School, is organizing a Pillowcase Drive as her first step in her Girl Scout’s Gold Award project, “Back to the Basics”.

Bastanchury will have donation boxes June 2-4 throughout the Valley to collect new or gently used pillowcases and bias tape. The collected materials will be used at a 4-hour workshop in July (date TBD) to teach girls and boys how to do basic sewing. Attendees will work with a number of community volunteers to learn how to hand sew buttons and use a basic stitch on a sewing machine, and then sew dresses from the pillow cases collected. The goal will be to make 150 dresses and donate them to a local homeless shelter and to the Little Dresses for Africa organization.

Bastanchury created “Back to the Basics” after reflecting on an experience she had making the pillowcase dresses at Bethania Lutheran Church community event. She wanted to both create something for those in need and also teach a skill she believes is lacking in today’s youth.

“I think sewing is kind of a lost trade, and I wanted to bring it back,” Bastanchury shared.

Donation bins can be found throughout the weekend at El Rancho Market, Albertsons, Harrison Hardware and the Buellton Library.

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Staff Report

Local Girl Scout Emily Donahue of Troop 50173 is earning her Gold Award by creating an event where she gets donated prom or evening dresses and gives them to girls that need a dress for a special occasion. The next dress fair is from 1 – 4 p.m. on March 26 at the Buellton Rec Center in the “Zone” behind the gym.

There are dresses for all occasions for girls in fifth through 12th grades for dances, graduation, holidays and more than 150 dresses have been donated to Emily by family, friends and community members. Those that come are asked to wear a leotard or bathing suit under their clothing to easily try on dresses as there are no private changing areas.

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