Girl Scout Receives Award for Teaching Students About Cancer After Teacher Dies

Megan Adams of Strongsville is one of 24 Girl Scouts in the northern region and 58 in Ohio who was recognized at the John S. Knight Center in Akron for receiving a Gold Award from the Girl Scouts of North East Ohio. 

“Although the Gold Award is the highest, most prestigious recognition a girl may earn in Girl Scouts, we know it is just the beginning of the amazing things these young ladies will accomplish in their lives,” said Jane Christyson, chief executive officer for Girl Scouts of North East Ohio, in a press release.  “Their projects have a lasting impact locally, nationally, and globally in environmental awareness, special needs populations, healthy living, community improvements and more.”

Summit County Court of Common Pleas Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer, a Girl Scout alumna, was the keynote speaker Saturday.

The Gold Award project challenges girls to identify an unmet need or core issue in their community, research and investigate it, recruit volunteers and build a team to create a plan to address the issue or need since 1916. 

The plan, called a Gold Award proposal, is submitted to council for approval by a committee of volunteers. Only about 5 percent of eligible girls take the rigorous path toward earning this prestigious award, but those who complete the journey change the lives of others and their own in amazing and significant ways. 

Mrs. Scott’s Memorial Garden & Cancer Education

Adams, a junior at Walsh Jesuit High School, has been a Girl Scout for 11 years.  She earned the Girl Scout Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards. 

For her Gold Award project, she taught grade school children attending St. Joseph and John about cancer. She was inspired by a teacher who passed away from cancer. Adams organized the planting of a memory garden outside of the grade school in the teacher’s name. She also brought together some of the top oncologist nurses from the Cleveland Clinic to speak to the seventh and eighth graders at the school. The program was geared toward what the kids wanted to know. 

Weeks before the program, Adams collected questions from all the seventh and eighth graders. Then she chose the most frequently asked to be answered by the oncology nurses.

In addition to Girl Scouts, Adams is involved in the Walsh Jesuit Center Stage Theater, the Gonzaga ministry at her school, National Honor Society and she helps run Vacation Bible School and Sunday School at her church. This summer she plans to go on an immersion trip to South Dakota. 

Adams plans to major in recreation therapy and eventually earn a doctorate of physical therapy.