Girl Scout Troop 2027 designs neighborhood map trails, earns Bronze Award

We are Girl Scout Troop 2027, a troop of 6th grade girls. The girls that make up Troop 2027 are Rose McKenna, Abigail Stanaland, Madeline Hovatter, Soleil Bryant, Reese Baker, Lillian Wearden, Savannah Welty, and Audrey Neilson. The troop is led by Molly McKenna and Amy Stanaland, both residents of Highpointe. Our troop formed when the girls were in first grade, and we have held our biweekly meetings at the Highpointe Amenity Center. We have always been grateful to be able to hold our meetings in such a nice space. Once we set our eyes on earning our Bronze Award, we wanted our Take Action project to benefit Highpointe, so that we could give back to the community.

We recently achieved the Girl Scout Bronze Award, which is the highest award a Girl Scout Junior can earn. Junior Girl Scouts are 4th and 5th graders. Our troop had planned to complete the Take Action project by the end of 5th grade, but the COVID-19 pandemic derailed those plans with the stay-at-home orders. Luckily, the Girl Scouts of Central Texas extended the deadline for their award programs to December 31, 2020, which allowed our troop to meet the deadline and complete the project. The Girl Scout Bronze Award is earned by completing a journey, and then creating a Take Action project based on their observations of a local issue. As the girls pursue their project, they put the Girl Scout Promise and Law into action. They also develop an understanding of sustainability and gain an understanding of the wider world by discussing how others may experience the same problem that their project helped resolve.

Our Take Action project was to make a map of all the trails in the Highpointe neighborhood and post a map next to each Trail Rules sign. We decided this would be a beneficial project because Highpointe did not have any trail maps, and we thought that it would be helpful to the community. We love hiking trails and thought it would be fun to map the trails.

Our troop measured all the trails and put that information into a hand drawn map and made our rough draft. Measuring the trails was done as we walked each trail with a measuring wheel and phone apps to measure distances. The map included marking the many concrete and granite trail access paths and the main concrete path that goes along Cool Spring Way. If you’re familiar with the layout of Highpointe, you may know that Cool Spring Way is the main road that circles around the center of the neighborhood. There are many neighborhood sections that are accessed from Cool Spring Way. The girls had fun naming the trails and decided the colors to display each trail. They also verified the existing “Trail Rules” signs that were posted near many of the trails.

Once we had our rough draft of the map, we worked with Jennifer Knowles, who is a GIS Technician and a colleague of co-leader Molly McKenna. Jennifer created the digitized version with her map-making skills and creativity. After the map was digitized, and in a format to create a sign, we worked with Debbie Kelly, the owner of Bill Bailey Signs, to get the signs made. Debbie helped us make some final edits. After the signs were complete, we posted the map signs on the existing poles in the neighborhood that held the Trail Rules signs. We also cleaned the Trail Rules signs because some of them had graffiti and dirt on them.

The leadership skills our troop learned were responsibility, communication, and teamwork. COVID-19 delayed our plans, so we had a lot of work to do in a short period of time. We each learned how good it feels to give back to the community that allowed us to use the Amenity Center for years. We also learned to work as a team better; to be better leaders; and how to be more flexible. If we could have done one thing differently, we would have started earlier because all the approvals that have to take place take time. We are excited for people to be able to use the map signs and hope that others appreciate them!