Congratulations, Eva, on earning your Gold Award! GSSEM is proud of you and your dedication to making a positive impact on your community and beyond.
Project: Turning the Page: Restoring Student Access to Books
Eva’s love for reading prompted her Gold Award project—reopening her high school library that closed in 2020.
Citing a declining interest in actual books, the ones in the library were reassigned to a storeroom, inaccessible to students, and the library space repurposed.
“The only way to get a book out of the “library” was to have a teacher assign it,” Eva said, noting students didn’t have a chance to just read for fun.
The collection of books, some damaged, some out of date, were being kept in large storage room. No one had an idea of what was in the room, so Eva developed a spreadsheet and re-catalogued every book in there.
The eventual goal was to develop a system for students to run the checkout/check in of books without the need of a school employee.
Student volunteers check out books, help other students in the library, and perform general maintenance of the space in exchange for service hours, she explained.
More books, more readers
During the cataloguing, Eva noticed many of the books were old and not interesting to current high school readers. Working with the school and district, she was able to apply for and secure a very generous grant to purchase hundreds of new books for her school.
Since the storage room was quite large, Eva and her team kept the books where they were and turned it into the new “library.” She picked out comfortable furniture and lighting, set up the new check out system, and opened the doors.
“I turned a storage room into a space that could host up to two full classes to let students read whatever they wanted at their own leisure,” Eva said. “As someone who loves reading, I value the freedom of being able to check out a book to read when I want, especially from the comfort of my own school.”
Her Gold Award project went so well, it activated the reopening of school libraires across the district, using the student run system she developed.
Learn more!
Eva chats about her Gold Award project on GSSEM’s YouTube channel.
Find out more about Girl Scout Highest Awards on our website at www.gssem.org/highestawards.
