Durham Girl Scout Earns Prestigious Honor

Durham resident Catherine Kannam has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the organization's most prestigious honor.

To earn the Gold Award, Girl Scouts are involved in more than a year of work including, among other requirements, a minimum of 30 hours in a leadership role, 40 hours of career exploration, and a minimum of 65 hours of work on a major project that will have a long-term impact on the girl’s community.

Catherine's project addressed the need for ongoing arts education in public schools.  She targeted an extracurricular theatre program at John Lyman School in Middlefield and led a team which addressed an expensive element of its theatre budget: set design and construction. 

The Mercy High School senior built a collection of sturdy set pieces and ramps which were used in the June 2012 productions of Aristocats. These set pieces have been stored at John Lyman School and will be used over and over again in future productions.

Catherine is the daughter of Thomas and Heather Kannam and will officially receive her Gold Award certificate from the Girl Scouts during a ceremony next June. .

The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest award in Girl Scouts.  As an award with national standards, it represents an individual’s time, leadership, commitment, creativity and effort contributed to making their community a better place to live.

The Girl Scout Gold Award has a long history. It became the highest award in Girl Scouting in 1980, originally established in 1916 as The Golden Eaglet of Merit. Only four years after the founding of Girl Scouts of the USA, this marked the beginning of a tradition of using prestigious awards to recognize girls who make a difference in their communities and in their own lives.

Information for this article was provided by a press release.