Junior’s Gold Award Project Highlights Healthy Eating

The Gold Award is the Girls Scouts’ highest honor. For her project, Rachel decided to combine her love for cooking and baking with her desire to educate others on the many benefits of a healthy, home-cooked meal.“I think that our society is inherently so fast-paced, leading to the easy yet unhealthy route of relying on fast food for meals,” she says. “My project's goal is to promote the awareness and implementation of healthy eating habits. These habits will not only benefit the body, but also the soul by encouraging us to slow down to enjoy simple, nutritious meals and foster a healthy and positive relationship with food.” 

Rachel’s Healthy Eating for a Healthy Life website features recipes with healthy, affordable and easily accessible ingredients. These recipes encompass a wide variety of dishes, from fresh salsa and homemade hummus to chickpea curry and strawberry jam. There are also video tutorials featuring Rachel and some of her fellow Oakies giving viewers easy step-by-step demonstrations on how to make featured dishes. 

Rachel decided to post the recipes in both English and Spanish. “My project research led me to identify several vulnerable groups within my community, including the lower-income Hispanic population and the elderly,” she explains. “Communication barriers exist for many of these families who only speak their native language, thereby limiting their exposure to nutritional and healthy cooking information. Because of this, making the information on the website available in Spanish, in addition to English, was a critical component to my project’s success.” 

In the process of completing her project, Rachel partnered with several organizations to gain a better understanding of her target audience and their needs. With help from her local YMCA, I-CARE Home Health Services (who support the elderly) and A Woman’s Choice, Rachel researched issues in her local community and developed a plan for addressing them. These organizations not only provided her with crucial information, but also gave her the tools she needed to reach out populations who would benefit most from the website. For instance, the YMCA food distribution program is now using resources from Rachel’s project, such as the blog and bilingual recipe cards. 

“I hope that the platform will continue to grow and serve as a vibrant and enriching source of information, as well as a means to foster a strong sense of community and support among the users,” Rachel says. 

Oakcrest Dean of Students Meghan Hadley reflects on Rachel’s achievement. “I am so impressed by the initiative and well-roundedness of our students,” she says. “Not only do they excel at Oakcrest—in the classroom, on the stage and on the playing field—they are also active members of their communities outside of school.  We're proud of you, Rachel!”