Four Girl Scouts from Newbury Park Troop 1231, all students at Newbury Park High School, received the Gold Award, the highest award given in Girl Scouting, on April 25. The honorees are Katelyn Levesque, Larisa Owechko, Danielle Palacios and Samantha Siros.
Levesque, 18, has been a Girl Scout for 13 years and earned the Bronze and Silver awards.
For her Gold Award project she built six wooden garden boxes for three Neighborhood for Learning sites in the school district. For each box, the wood was cut, sanded, stained and assembled. The completed boxes were then filled with a mixture of dirt, soil and fertilizer. The garden boxes are to be used by Neighborhood for Learning preschool classes to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables.
Levesque is the daughter of Paul and Jackie Levesque of Newbury Park.
Owechko, 17, has been a member of Troop 1231 for 13 years and earned the Bronze and Silver awards. For her project, she worked with classroom libraries at Harrington Elementary School in Oxnard, a Program Improvement School under the literacy requirements set by No Child Left Behind. She wrote numerous new quizzes, in both English and Spanish, for popular books for the school’s Accelerated Reader program. Owechko also reorganized some classroom libraries, sorting through 3,200 books and labeling about 1,400.
Owechko is the daughter of Sue and Yuri Owechko of Newbury Park.
Palacios, 18, has been a Girl Scout for 13 years and earned the Bronze and Silver awards. For her project, Time for Jeans, she collected gently used jeans, pants, shorts and alarm clocks for students of low-income families and migrant workers at Harrington Elementary School in Oxnard. With support from the community she collected more than 350 pairs of jeans and 11 alarm clocks. The jeans were washed, sorted and labeled, then donated to 160 youths. The remaining pants will be donated to others students as needed. Some students received alarm clocks and learned how to use them.
Palacios is the daughter of Carlos and Patty Palacios.
Siros, 17, has been a Girl Scout for nine years. For her project she started a service group at Newbury Park High School called Alliance of Community Interest. The students in ACI volunteered with Many Mansions and planned the Friday Activity Club.
They also volunteered at Senior Concerns one Friday each month under her leadership. In October ACI partnered with the Girls Empowerment Center in Westlake to refurbish the Girls Club’s Audrey Hepburn room, with the help of ACI members and friends.
Siros is the daughter of Carlos and Joann Siros of Newbury Park.
