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From Gold Award Project to Annual Event
A Tennessee Girl Scout turns an art exhibition into a recurring community event.
Some Gold Award projects come about when a Girl Scout discovers an issue in her community that she wants to solve. Others happen because of a national moment that stops the country in its tracks. Watching events unfold during the summer of 2020 sparked the idea for Gold Award Girl Scout Jaila W.’s project.
“After seeing everything that happened in 2020 to minority groups in America, I decided that young people needed an outlet to share their outcries with the public,” Jaila recalls. “[The year] included not only a global pandemic that disproportionally impacted Black/Latinx communities, but also a social and political breaking point for the Black community regarding police brutality and discrimination. I began to see how social media platforms became a safe space for young people to create awareness and become activists. I wanted to recreate this space in a more formal and facilitated manner where community members could access inputs on these issues from local young adults.”
Jaila got to work creating a fine arts exhibition celebrating Juneteenth. Because she wanted to give her entire community access to the event, Jaila worked with the Bradley Academy Cultural Museum in Murfreesboro, TN, to host it. It was a space that also had cultural significance to her because the building was the first school to formally educate black students in her community.
Over a period of six months, Jaila sought out young artists in her community through local high school art and writing teachers and worked with them to prepare pieces for the event. Those pieces included artwork, music, dancing, and spoken word performances. Each one allowed marginalized voices to be heard and gave young artists a space they may not have had access to without Jaila’s project.
“I wanted to make sure the exhibition included a conglomerate of all issues that face the community I lived in,” she says. “[And that] it captured an array of cultures and people that wanted to voice their input on activism, which included issues like mental health, Black Lives Matter, lack of security, and lack of support.”
She says giving her artists a safe space with no fear of negativity or backlash on their pieces was the biggest challenge to overcome in completing her project—and something she did successfully, with the help of the museum. The most rewarding part?
“Seeing the artists observe their work in an exhibition,” she says. “It was amazing to show these young people that their voices matter, are important, and are needed. I wanted to instill in them that they can do so much even at a young age and show them that people were finally listening.”
The event was so well received and well attended that the Bradley Academy Cultural Museum asked Jaila to turn her project into an annual event. “The museum really encouraged me to go further with my project and realize how big this event could and will be,” she says. “The event was recorded and aired on local television, included in local newspapers, and will continue to be included in a three-day celebration of Juneteenth at the museum. I hope to see it grow and include more artists and hopefully bring about some community engagement on these specific topics as well.”
Earning the Gold Award is a crowning achievement for any Girl Scout. Turning it into an annual event is a rare and special accomplishment that Jaila is especially proud of.
“I hope other young people realize that they have every right to dream big,” she says. “I hope young people not only feel liberated but also heard. That their voice and opinion and pain matter to somebody, and not just somebody anywhere, but someone in their own community.”
