RVC Girl Scout earns Gold Award for revitalizing ‘Youth Court’

Posted

Girl Scouts of Nassau County recently presented more than 70 Gold Awards, including one to Samantha Horowitz, of Rockville Centre, during a ceremony hosted at Adelphi University.

The Gold Award recognizes the power and dedication shared by an elite group of young women who earn the highest honor a Girl Scout can achieve. Each recipient spent more than 80 hours during the past year planning, executing and presenting the results of her project, which aimed to make the world a better place for others as well as herself.

“We are extremely proud to celebrate so many local young women earning the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award,” said Donna Ceravolo, executive director and chief executive officer of the Girl Scouts of Nassau County. “On average, only five percent of eligible Girl Scouts successfully earn the Gold Award, making these girls part of an exclusive group of women with the tools to become leaders in the 21st century.”

After observing the lack of knowledge among her peers regarding the judicial system in America, Horowitz, a 2017 graduate who served as student government president, for her project helped revive Youth Court, a club at South Side High School supervised by the Rockville Centre Village Court.

She got involved in the club hoping to inform her peers about misdemeanor crimes and how they impact teenagers in her community. Through the club, a teen that commits a misdemeanor in the community has the option of going through a trial set up by fellow students, who act as a judge, attorney and jury. The student can receive a club-distributed punishment in exchange for the crime not appearing on his or her permanent record.

Roughly 1 million Girl Scout alumnae have developed Gold Award projects that have addressed local or global issues. After identifying an area of interest, a successful Gold Award recipient performs hours of research and prepares a project proposal to be submitted for feedback and approval to the Girl Scouts Council before embarking on her project. The Girl Scout presents her final conclusions as the last step of the journey.

Lifelong value comes with having earned a Gold Award. According to the Girl Scout Research Institute, Gold Award recipients display more positive life outcomes pertaining to sense of self, life, satisfaction, leadership, life success, community service and civic engagement. Recipients of the award who enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces may also receive advanced rank for their achievements and can receive scholarships or other recognition from most colleges or universities.