Earning the Girl Scouts of the USA’s 2023 Gold Award this spring, Orland Hills resident Ava Murray was simply continuing her family’s longtime love affair with Scouting.
Now a sophomore in business administration at Illinois State University, Murray, 19, is among just 5.4% of eligible Girl Scouts to earn Gold Award status, akin to the rates for those earning Eagle status in the Boy Scouts. Both of Murray’s brothers — Tyler, 23, and Trevor, 17 — are Eagle Scouts; older sister Sierra, 22, was a Scout as well.
“I joined as soon as you could join, in kindergarten,” Murray said. “My mom was actually my leader, and my whole family was super-involved in Scouts.”
Murray said her favorite memories with the Girl Scouts involve service, including volunteering at the Greater Chicago Food Depository. The organization itself is rooted in service; its stated mission is “Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.”
In order to earn the award, Murray and other Gold Award recipients spent 80 hours planning and completing a “Take Action” project that provides a sustainable benefit to the larger community. Others in her class, recently honored at a ceremony in Tinley Park, came up with projects ranging from native plant education to addressing period poverty to creating a YouTube channel for older people.
Witnessing the stress the pandemic placed on students her age and the difficulty some had reassimilating gave her some initial direction, Murray said. When a school social worker alerted her to a national program called We Dine Together that might help her fellow students, the project resonated.
“At my school, we have different lunch periods, and my best friend would talk to me every day about how she had no one to eat with,” she said.
That decided matters. She applied to be a student leader and her course was set.
“I thought, I can literally help my best friend,” Murray said.
The student-led group gradually evolved from simply encouraging kids to socialize at lunch.
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“Once we got back to school (post-pandemic), it was a low commitment group, so people from the younger grades could join easily,” she said, adding the group generally had 15-20 participants. “Even if they were shy, after some one-on-one conversation they felt more comfortable.”
Eventually, the group decided to broaden its reach, culminating in one monthly group meeting along with one community activity a month.
“We shifted to inclusivity in general,” Murray said, “and brainstormed community outreach ideas.”
Decorating the campus every October for Red Ribbon Week, an initiative to keep kids off drugs, was a favorite campaign, she said, as was leaving notes on everyone’s lockers for Valentine’s Day.
Murray is grateful to have been able to lead the initiative.
“It was great that the opportunity just came to me,” she said.
Laura Bruni is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.