Peninsula Girl Scouts enrich the community with their Gold Award projects, as Girl Scouts spend over 80 hours carrying out good deeds such as teaching and habitat restoration. Senior Bella Townsend, sophomore Alyssa Yeh and senior Annaliese Wargin are three of many students who have worked towards the Gold Award. During her sophomore year, Townsend taught a creative-writing class for two weeks at the San Pedro Boys and Girls Club. Inspired by her passion for literature, Townsend strove to help children express their feelings in healthy ways through writing.

“I watched the students in my class write about feelings and struggles that they had never faced before and even though it was only two weeks, I could see them growing as they worked on creativity and character building,” Townsend said.

Townsend felt her leadership and patience skills improved in working with these children. The curriculum Townsend developed is still used at the Boys and Girls Club in San Pedro and in Wilmington.

“My favorite part was learning about the different lives each of the students had lived,” Townsend said. “[I loved] watching them open up about their struggles and their joys.”

Yeh is currently working on her Gold Award project, which involves blogging the stories of fifteen senior citizens in the South Bay. Her goal is to show the public that the elderly have valuable stories to impart.

“A lot of my peers feel uncomfortable around the elderly and do not know what to say to them,” Yeh said. “Having spent most of my life with my great-grandma and four grandparents, I am aware of how valuable their advice is, no matter how wide the age gap. I wanted to ease this discomfort and show the youth in my community that in order to create a better future, we must know about the past.”

Yeh was inspired by her great-grandma to launch a project concerned with senior citizens. Yeh has already found four volunteers.

“I have been so surprised, and touched, at just how happy they are to see me,” Yeh said. “My project is not just for my peers, it is also for the seniors themselves. Many seniors struggle with loneliness and memory loss. I hope to stimulate their memories and bring them joy through a simple conversation.”

Annaliese Wargin aspires to be an entomologist, a scientist of insects, and used this interest to formulate her Gold Award project. She made presentations about insect diversity and how they affect ecosystems at the San Pedro Library and at the Palos Verdes Land Conservancy. She also informs inquiring children and parents at presentations about the benefits of insects in the community.

“The goal of my project was to teach children about insects in an attempt to get them to learn to respect insects, rather than irrationally fear them,” Wargin said.

According to Wargin, her favorite part of her Gold Award project was the researching, as she was able to learn more, observe new insects and interact with curious children.

“Communicating with children and public speaking are two of my biggest fears, and I faced both of them through this project,” Wargin said.