Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan honors Victoria He with the most prestigious award in the world for girls: the Girl Scout Gold Award. Victoria, of Farmington Hills, is among 13 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 a minimum of 80 hours investigating the problem, creating a plan, and implementing it.

Climate change and environmental issues are seen being discussed worldwide. For her Gold Award project, Victoria took action to educate her community about the environment. She wanted those in community to learn about lifestyle changes that would make the world a little greener. After reading that a main cause of climate change was a lack of education, Victoria knew that such a small issue could easily be fixed. Working with a group of peers, she gathered several environment-related organizations to host a fair, teaching the community about an array of topics such as green energy, recycling, and watersheds.

The fair ended with all visitors learning something new and willing to make a lifestyle change! There were about 80 visitors and eight organizations present. However, it didn’t stop there. Victoria furthered her efforts by delivering masks and slips of paper with greener living tips. She and her team delivered 460 masks in total, including 52 family homes and one senior citizens home.

“Education is the key to making all of these changes happen.”