Lynbrook High School student sets gold standard for fundraising

Elise Candreva has been raising quails at her Lynbrook home every year since she was in sixth grade, turning the eggs three times a day and waiting almost a month for them to hatch. When they did, Candreva would bring them to Caleb Smith State Park in Smithtown, where they would eat the ticks.

“She’s very interested in using this natural way to control the tick population,” said Pat Hickey, Candreva’s Girl Scout troop leader.

So, when she was asked to create a Gold Award project, Candreva decided to expand her tick elimination efforts. Over the past few months, she has gone to local school district administrators with brochures and slideshows explaining her Quail v. Tick program, and asking the educators to raise quails in their classes rather than chickens, frogs or hamsters.

Candreva, who is now a senior at Lynbrook High School, said she presented the idea to administrators at her school, and is “hoping they will join in future years.”

“She’s really displayed a lot of leadership in pushing this issue forward,” Hickey said, adding that the Girl Scouts of Nassau County was “very impressed” with her science-related project.

But this was not the only time Candreva used her passion for science to improve society — she spent last summer on a medical mission to Nigeria. There, a medical team from Johns Hopkins University performed hernia surgeries on almost 100 children over two weeks.

“We worked long days,” Dr. Karen Schneider wrote in Candreva’s letter of recommendation for college, “and although she is not medically trained, she was quick to catch on and become a vital member of the team.”

During those two weeks, Candreva dressed 15 children a day in surgery gowns, handed them coloring books and crayons, monitored their heart rate, recorded their weights and ages, and once even held down a child’s legs while he was undergoing surgery.

Candreva said she did not receive training for any of those tasks, but “learned by example.”

On her own accord, Candreva also brought a Polaroid camera and took pictures of the families, some of whom did not have any family photos, and made each child a brightly colored T-shirt that said “I had surgery” with an embellished stethoscope on it.

“Elise is a very special young person,” Schneider wrote. “I know because I have tested her limits.”

Candreva and five other Girl Scouts in Troop 2188 will receive their Gold Award at a ceremony on May 10. She said she plans to attend West Virginia University in the fall.