MAKING A DIFFERENCE, ONE PROJECT AT A TIME: TWO D99 SIXTH GRADERS CELEBRATED FOR EARNING GIRL SCOUT BRONZE AWARD 🏆🤝🏡

Since its founding in 1912, the Girl Scouts has made a name for itself as an international organization providing girls with an abundance of experiences to build leadership skills, find camaraderie with peers, explore outdoor adventures and build self-reliance. 

And this week in Cicero, two District 99 students were recognized by their local Girl Scouts troop and Town of Cicero leadership for their outstanding achievement of earning one of the Girl Scouts' most prestigious honors — the Bronze Award.

The highest and most coveted honor a Junior Girl Scout can achieve, Sophia Cervantes, a sixth grader at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, and Victoria Camacho, a sixth grader at Sherlock Elementary School, collaborated toward achieving the service award by creating an autism guide to help teachers explain autism to students. By working together to create the guide, Cervantes and Camacho's goal was to provide a valuable resource for teachers to help students learn more about the condition, promote understanding, and encourage acceptance and inclusion.

In order to achieve the prestigious Bronze Award, the girls had to spend at least 20 hours planning and executing a sustainable community project and then submit a final report to their local Girl Scouts council.

Through their effort of completing the autism education guide, Cervantes and Camacho were able to demonstrate initiative, perseverance and a genuine desire to make a lasting difference in Cicero.

Cervantes and Camacho were formally presented with their Bronze Awards on Tuesday, Aug. 18 at a special Court of Awards ceremony at Safety Park. 

Cervantes says the inspiration behind focusing on a service project about autism was from her brother, who was diagnosed with autism at age 2.

"When our family found out he has autism, the doctors said he would learn slower than others — but that didn't stop him from learning like other kids," she said. "But to me, it doesn't matter how long it takes to teach him things, I just want him to learn new things."

Camacho was on board for centering their project on an autism guide not only because of how autism has impacted her own family, but because she is familiar with classmates who also have autism. To Camacho, it was important to help others learn more about what autism encompasses and break stigma along the way.

"I realized that although many kids may know the word 'autism,' many do not understand what it means," Camacho explained. "We may not know how one with autism may think, communicate, learn and act, other than it is different then what someone is used to. I want to educate others that just because someone has autism, it doesn’t mean something is wrong — it just means they are different. Everyone is different in their own way and that is something everyone needs to learn to accept and respect."