National Gold Award Girl Scouts

Annie created Imaginarium, a career development conference that teaches students about public speaking and entrepreneurship, in addition to building their confidence. In an effort to bridge the gap between what the career world expects from students and the education system that is preparing students for that world, she wanted to develop a resource that would strengthen students' entrepreneurial skills around business management, finance, and communications. At the conference and with guidance from industry professionals, students transformed their creative ideas into business plans for an array of products, from apps that promoted driving safety to entire bathrooms that reused water. Imaginarium participants made their dreams into reality and the program is cultivating our future business leaders.

Varsha initiated construction of a women's ward at the Vallal Mena Hospital, a small out-patient facility in Kodikkottai, India, and helped to expand it into an in-patient medical facility, which resulted in an increase in treatments and services for patients in the community and neighboring villages. Her project raised awareness about the villagers' needs and inspired the local bank to donate an ambulance so that people had access to Vallal Mena hospital as well as to the larger hospital that was 40 kilometers away.

Learning about the lack of clean and accessible water in Africa, Sricharana (Sri) created an African culture awareness show, called “Taste of Africa” to educate her community on African culture.  Over 500 people attended Sri’s event and its proceeds were used so she could travel to Tanzania to construct a water retention system and a goat pen for a cooperative of ten women and their families.  Villagers no longer need to travel miles for accesses to clean water.