OC Gold Award Girl Scout Receives 2020 Gloria Barron Prize

Earlier this fall, Gold Award Girl Scout Isabella Paoletti-Tejeda (18) from Yorba Linda was recognized among 15 youth across the country as a national winner of the 2020 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes.

Established by author T. A. Barron, the Barron Prize annually honors 25 outstanding young leaders - ages 8 to 18 - who have made a significant positive difference to people and the environment. The top 15 winners each receive $10,000 to support their service work or higher education.

As a national winner, Isabella received a $10,000 Barron Prize, which she chose to donate to Higher Ground Youth and Family Services, a local nonprofit serving at-risk youth in Anaheim. Isabella has collaborated with Higher Ground Youth and Family Services for the past several years while she developed her Girl Scout Gold Award project “Read a Story, Change a Life.” The Barron Prize will provide funding to continue her project and support the newly built onsite Higher Ground STEM Lab and Family Health Center.

Isabella’s program “Read a Story, Change a Life,” is a literacy intervention initiative, which has helped more than 2,500 at risk students learn to read and write. Her program inspires imagination and builds lifelong readers through storytelling and interactive workshops. Based in Orange County, “Read a Story, Change a Life” serves children at affordable housing developments, low-income preschools, and local libraries. Her program also supports young students in Kampala, Uganda. As part of her Girl Scout Gold Award Project, Isabella built a team of 120 volunteers and secured more than $44,000 to fund her work, with donations and support from Disney, First Book, Youth Service America, among other groups.

Isabella shares, “While earning my Girl Scout Gold Award, I learned invaluable skills, such as identifying a need, communicating my passion and plan for change, moving others to join me, quantifying results, and successfully writing grant proposals to earn money to fund my project. I learned that my age does not define my potential impact on the world.”

Isabella is a graduate of Rosary Academy in Fullerton who now attends Westmont College in
Santa Barbara.

For more information on how you can get involved with Read a Story, Change a Life, follow Isabella’s project on twitter: @gsgogold.