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Girl Scouts, volunteer awarded in Belpre

Photo Provided Three Girl Scouts in Belpre were recognized in May with the highest award in Girl Scouting, the Gold Award. From left are Kayla Arthurs, Charlotte Bailey and Sarah Slater.

BELPRE — Three Girl Scouts and an adult volunteer in Belpre have been recognized with two of the highest awards in Girl Scouting.

In May, Charlotte Bailey, Kayla Arthurs and Sara Slater were presented with Gold Award Certificates during the Belpre Service Unit’s annual End of Year event at Rockland United Methodist Church in Belpre.

The picnic celebrated the end of the working part of the Girl Scout year in Belpre, said Maxine Mobbs, Girl Scout Gold Advisor.

Adult volunteer Joan Fontaine was presented with the Thanks Badge, the highest award for an adult in Girl Scouts. The Thanks Badge is given to a person who has gone above and beyond the expectations for their position and the benefit has been to the whole Council, Mobbs said.

Fontaine has worked with Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council for many years.

She was a leader with a Troop in Parkersburg for a long time then moved on to The Gold Award Committee and has served there for 19 years, Mobbs said.

The Gold Awards given to Bailey, Arthurs and Slater were the first presented in Belpre in more than a decade, she said.

The Gold Award (equivalent of Eagle Scout) is awarded to a Girl Scout Senior or Girl Scout Ambassador who has planned and carried out a sustainable project with 80 hours or more, Mobbs said.

The work includes all the planning, sending in a proposal to The Gold Award Committee for approval, carrying out the project and sending in a Final Report. The goal of the award is to test the leadership skills of a girl. Each Gold Award is done on their own but the girl pulls in all the help she needs but she is the team leader, Mobbs said.

Slater will be a senior at Washington County Career Center. She is the daughter of Jeff and Mary Jo Slater of Belpre.

For her project, Slater chose to refurbish the old unused pond area at Belpre Elementary School. She power-washed the pond’s woodwork and then sealed it, redid the sign and planted water loving trees around the site. At the request of the school principal she wrote a booklet naming all the trees around the pond so it can be used in science classes and it can be available to the general public from the school office.

Slater put in over 100 hours on the project.

Bailey will be a senior at WCCC. She is the daughter of Reggie and Wendy Bailey of Belpre.

For her project, Baily chose to draw and paint a mural on a wall at her church at Cedar Grove United Methodist Church in Parkersburg. She had to learn a lot about paints and how to keep them fresh and how to upsize her small drawing to fit the space she had. She made a video as she was painting. She has left with the church information of how to care for the mural and how anyone can continue to another mural from hers. The project involved over 100 hours of work.

Arthurs will be a senior at Belpre High School. She is the daughter of Jerry and Nancy Arthurs of Belpre.

For her project, Arthurs decided to record all of the gravestones in Cedarville Cemetery so that there is a record of all the stones before they fall down into the Ohio river and are lost forever.

She took pictures of all the stones, did rubbings of them then placed them all in a booklet that is available from Belpre Historical Society which will be of great help to genealogists in the future who come to look for their ancestors. She also found that some very early settlers of Belpre and Union soldiers are buried there. She also put in plants and flowers to make the cemetery look brighter. The project involved over 100 hours of work.

Slater and Arthurs also talked with the America in Bloom judges in 2016, who were impressed with the work they had done and said they would pass the ideas on in their report, Mobbs said.

Slater also received the President’s Award at the same time as her Gold Award presentation.

The awards were presented by Mobbs, Beth Casey, CEO of Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council, and Denise Davis, director of Volunteer Resources and Membership Data.

The CEO of Girl Scouts of Black Diamond will present these awards with the help of Denise Davis, Director of Recruitment and Retention.

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