Thanks to Girl Scout Gold Award recipient Nellie Johnson for this blog post about her Gold Award project.
For my Gold Award project I chose to make pillows for
recovering breast cancer patients. These pillows are for after they get out of
surgery, and have to drive and protect their chest from the seat belt, or for
when they cough.
This project was an
easy decision for me because several woman I know have had breast cancer. One
in particular had really touched my heart, as she was a mother in my Girl Scout
troop. I witnessed in full the toll it took on her. She is one of the
strongest woman I know, and the cancer had made her incredibly weak. It made me
realize how hard it has to be for every woman who has ever been affected by
breast cancer.
When deciding on
my project, I wanted to make sure I chose something that would impact numerous
amounts of people that have been affected by cancer. The pillows that I had
made the patients made a huge difference to them.
With my project,
I had so many amazing opportunities. I was able to have a
booth at the Susan G. Komen Health Fair, which is where I met ladies that have
been thought chemo at least 3 times, and woman that are just experiencing the
long and uncomfortable process. Being at the fair, I don't think I met one
person who didn't have faith and hope for a speedy and healthy recovery. All of them told me this was a key factor in going through cancer. These woman were and are
so incredibly strong. It made me realize that the project I had chosen was a
well-deserved one, and was impacting the community.
I got an amazing
opportunity while working on the project to work with a organization called
Breast Friends. It's a group in the community that have all been affected by
breast cancer and know what it feels like and how hard it is to go through.
They set up events and fundraisers to get their name out there. They also set up
little gift bags for newly diagnosed breast cancer patients up at
Providence and St.Vincent's. I
donated over 400 pillows alone to breast friends to put in the bags.
It's organizations
like Breast Friends that made my project completely worth it. I was able to not
only learn more about cancer, but I was also able to donate pillows to them for
the patients.
