5 New Hyde Park Girl Scouts earn highest recognition

Richard Tedesco

Five New Hyde Park Girl scouts recently earned Gold Awards, the highest level of recognition attainable, for community service projects in education.

The Gold Award project helps high school-aged Girl Scouts develop leadership skills and explore diverse career paths.

Mollie Ann Stein earned her Gold Award for her project titled, “Totally Talented,” which consisted of a six-week art education program for children in her community. She taught a group of 15 first through sixth graders art skills in different media, including collages in the series of two-and-one-half-hour classes she taught.

“She’s good at art and she wanted to share that with younger ones,” said Mary Stein, her mother and leader of Girl Scout Troop 1520. “She tried to do a little bit of everything.”

The series ended with an art gallery, where the children displayed their artwork for families and friends. Admission to the classes was a donation of an item of non-perishable food.

Stein recently graduated from New Hyde Park Memorial High School, where she was the class vice president, co-editor-in-chief of the yearbook and captain of the varsity field hockey team. She will be attending Fordham University in the fall.

Emily Innvar earned her Gold Award for her project, “Dance Crew,” aimed at giving boys and girls ages 6 to 8 with a Saturday dance activity. Each child was asked to bring a new pair of socks to the classes, which were donated to a local charity. The classes – comprising 12 girls – culminated with a recital.

“I thought it was a way for the girls to be healthy and active and make friends at the same time,” Innvar said. “It was a great way to learn and teach with the kids. I want to be an art teacher, so it was a good way for me to tell how I’d handle it.”

Innvar recently graduated from New Hyde Park Memorial High School, where she was a member of the National Business Honor Society, Academy of Finance, Gay-Straight Alliance and the Twirling team. This fall, she will be attending the College of Saint Rose, where she plans to major in art.

Danielle Gaspe, a member of Girl Scout Troop 1015, met with members of one of the New Hyde Park Lady Cougars soccer teams during their practices and taught them new skills they could use to prepare themselves for their games. She also created nutritional information for the girls to take home to guide them in choosing healthier food options.

The project was a natural progression from working with her younger sister and a few of her sister’s friends offering pointers on game preparation skills she taught herself.

“When I was growing up, I was never really guided on what to do when I prepared for a game. No one ever told me what to eat, how to stretch or anything,” said Gaspe, who has been playing soccer since the age of four.

She said her career aspiration is to be a trainer or a soccer coach.

Gaspe will be a senior at Sacred Heart Academy, where she is a midfielder on the school’s soccer team.

Jessica Fiorella and Christina Montoni, both members of troop 1520, conducted workshops to educate children on a healthy lifestyle. The girls taught the students good eating habits and how to make healthy after-school snacks. At each workshop, they led Zumba dances. They also created brochures with healthy eating habits and exercising tips, which were distributed at the end of the workshops.

Fiorella recently graduated from Sacred Heart Academy, where she was part of the theatre production technical crew and community theatre. She plans to attend Adelphi University in the fall.

Montoni recently graduated from Holy Trinity High School, where she was on the soccer, basketball and lacrosse teams. She will be attending Adelphi University, where she has earned a Girl Scout Gold Award Scholarship.

Stein, Innvar, Fiorella and Montoni all held their respective classes at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church on New Hyde Park Road.

They received their Gold Awards at a ceremony at the Inn at New Hyde Park last month. Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano subsequently presented the girls, along with their Eagle Scout counterparts from Boy Scouts, with certificates for their achievements at the Theodore Roosevelt Legislative Chamber in Mineola.

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