Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan honors Maddy Yarema with the most prestigious award in the world for girls: the Girl Scout Gold Award. Maddy, of Richmond, is among 14 young women who have taken the initiative to bettering their communities through sustainable community change projects. The time and commitment they’ve dedicated towards these projects prove they’re true leaders and exceptional examples for all girls to look up to.

The Gold Award is Girl Scout’s highest honor and is presented to Girl Scouts who address a community issue or problem they are passionate about. They’re required to spend at least 80 hours investigating the problem, creating a plan and implementing it.

For her Gold Award project, Maddy noticed the notion of food insecurity and the stigma surrounding it in her community. Noticing this, she took action. She learned that St. Mary’s Food Pantry in Armada, MI serviced the surrounding communities with a dwindling number of volunteers; she aimed to fix that. By creating the Metro D Food Pantry Index, she worked tirelessly to gather resources for those looking to help, and found local volunteers to help at a local food pantry. Lastly, she connected food pantries to the website to allow an accurate list of needs to cut down on food waste and help supply hard-to-acquire resources, like personal hygiene products. She also connected local Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops to help maintain the resource, spread education and kindness, and allow a continuous community commitment of service to help them flourish.

“I’ve learned how to be an advocate for food security and community outreach. I made a difference.”