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GSUSA Celebrates 3,500 Gold Award Girl Scouts—World-Changers Who Took Action on Pressing Issues
The 2021 Gold Award Girl Scouts gained tangible leadership skills and created sustainable impact in their communities.
NEW YORK, NY (September 14, 2021)—Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) is celebrating its 2021 class of Gold Award Girl Scouts: over 3,500 teen world-changers who have created lasting impact on issues that are important to them. Gold Award Girl Scouts identify the root cause of a problem, plan and implement innovative solutions that address that problem, and lead a team of people who support their success.
The Gold Award is a Girl Scout’s highest achievement, available to girls in high school who drive sustainable change on issues in their communities and beyond. This year’s class of Gold Award Girl Scouts invested over 350,000 hours in taking action to destigmatize conversations about mental health, raise awareness about racism in the healthcare system, organize a youth movement for environmental advocacy, document teens’ experiences of the pandemic in state archives, increase LGBTQ+ inclusion, and more.
2021 Gold Award Girl Scouts demonstrate the breadth of issues that American teens feel are pressing. Topics these Girl Scouts addressed most frequently include:
- Health: including mental health, suicide prevention, drug abuse, nutrition, and self-esteem
- Environmental sustainability: including climate change, pollution, alternative energy, clean water, and farming
- Education: including literacy, career training, and financial know-how
- Arts, culture, and heritage: including cultural awareness, historic preservation, performing arts, visual arts, and music
- Children’s issues: including foster care, infant care, and mentoring
As they take action to transform their world, Gold Award Girl Scouts gain tangible skills and prove they’re the leaders our world needs. Members of the 2021 class say they’ve become focused project managers (89%), confident public speakers (52%), strong decision-makers (68%), and empathetic leaders (32%)*. To help finance their Gold Award projects, the majority generated funds, including from their Girl Scout Cookie earnings, which they learned how to budget. These skills give them an edge personally and professionally—research (PDF) shows that 99% of Gold Award Girl Scout alums take on leadership roles in their everyday lives. Also according to recent research (PDF), most Gold Award Girl Scouts get a boost in earning scholarships, in the college admissions process, and in professional advancement.
“We are so proud of our 2021 Gold Award Girl Scouts for the incredible work they have done driving lasting, positive change,” said GSUSA Interim CEO Judith Batty. “Gold Award Girl Scouts set themselves apart from their peers through their perseverance and passion—and they build their resumes and open up scholarship opportunities in the process. In addition to changing the world around them for the better, they transform their own lives by building skills for academic, career, and personal success.”
GSUSA is also proud to announce that one Gold Award Girl Scout from nearly every local council has been awarded a scholarship thanks to sponsorship from Arconic Foundation and Kappa Delta Foundation. Each Girl Scout council was able to nominate one of their outstanding Gold Award Girl Scouts, whose project exemplifies the core components of the Gold Award, to receive a scholarship.
The 2021 class of Gold Award Girl Scouts will be celebrated at the organization-wide Girl Scouts Change the World virtual event on October 9, sponsored by the LEGO Group, a partner that inspires the builders of tomorrow and believes creativity will rebuild the world. Current Girl Scouts grades 4–12, plus parents and volunteers, can register by October 5 to be inspired by the 2021 Gold Award Girl Scouts and discover how they themselves can make the world a better place. Attendees will be able to engage in sessions about mental wellness and girls' rights.
To join or volunteer, visit www.girlscouts.org/join.
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* CORRECTION: On July 1, 2022, a change was made to correct the percentages of Girl Scouts who developed specific skills in the process of earning their Girl Scout Gold Award. The correct statistics are now reflected on this page. We apologize for the error.
