Officials Recognize Girl Scouts' Service to Community

State Assemblywomen Mila Jasey and Nancy Munoz were joined by local officials Friday night to honor 26 Chatham Girl Scouts for their service to the community.

Chatham Borough Council President Victoria Fife, Chatham Township Mayor Kevin Sullivan and Chatham Township Police Lt. Maureen Kazaba attended the event at the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township.

Four girls received the Gold Award, Girl Scouts’ highest honor. All high school seniors, the girls spent one to two years on their projects. Gold Award recipients are:

Eleanor Zagoren founded a violin performance group that travels to local nursing homes and assisted living residences to play for the residents. This group of violinists devoted tremendous effort into making these performances successful. Tess Kolker founded a Global Awareness Club at Chatham High School to help students understand humanitarian issues around the world and also organized a Global Health Forum and the first annual Global Awareness Benefit Concert at CHS. Meghan LeMon created a Children's Book Club for third- and fourth-grade boys and girls at the Library of the Chathams. The project addressed the issue of children not being engaged in reading and not wanting to read on their own. Ashley Gapusan created Girl Power, a workshop teaching young girls how to improve their self esteem. It also focused on inner beauty, beauty around the world and beauty throughout time.

Gold Award candidates commended at the ceremony were Kayla Langborgh, who created a website called “Kindness is Cool” as an anti-bullying vehicle, and Alexandra Cote, who launched a program for each senior class to design a wall at Chatham High School commemorating their class.

Twenty Chatham girls earned the coveted Silver Award. The eighth- and ninth-graders spent about 50 hours on each project, which included creating a web site for the siblings of autistic children, speaking at an Earth Day assembly at Washington Ave. School, creating a T-shirt design contest for the St. Patrick's Community 5K run, hosting a game night for children at a homeless shelter, making  fleece blankets and doll clothes to cheer up patients at Overlook Hospital, painting cougar paw stencils on key walking paths to encourage students to walk to school, and making 1000 origami cranes for the non-profit organization Cranes for Cancer.