SWAMPSCOTT — Girl Scout Ambassador Grace Ramos from Swampscott’s Troop 86303 was just awarded the Girl Scout Gold Award for her sustainability project “Mission Penguin.”
“Mission Penguin” is a project Ramos brought to her school, Academy at Penguin Hall (APH), when its compost was rejected due to improper waste disposal in April 2021.
“I proposed the penguin project to educate the school community about how to live a more environmentally conscious lifestyle, but also to teach them about how to sort their waste at school because we have trash, recycling, and compost,” Ramos, a junior at APH, said.
When she pitched the project, the school’s waste was at more than 25 pounds per day. Now, because of Ramos’ efforts, it is down to 15 pounds per day.
The Girl Scout Gold Award, which is for high schoolers, is the most prestigious award a girl scout can receive.
“Gold Award Girl Scouts are rock stars, role models, and real-life heroes,” the Girl Scouts website said. “How do they do it? By using everything they’ve learned as a Girl Scout to help fix a problem in their community or make a lasting change in their world.”
Ramos said she also started an environmental club at the school. The club has been able to bring back a cleaning service program after lunch and create educational activities around sustainability.
“Throughout all my work and findings, it would mean nothing if it wasn’t sustainable,” Ramos said. “Because sustainability is the number one factor of a Gold Award project, I have updated the values of APH in our student handbook, as well as made a short story write-up called ‘Grace’s Guide to Environmental Education.’”
Ramos also said she has made sure there are signs and resources throughout APH to inform the school community on “how to live a more environmentally conscious lifestyle.”
“It’s the little things that make the big difference and I believe that my project has educated people to take action,” Ramos said.
Ramos was also awarded a citation for her work at a Select Board meeting Tuesday evening.
Select Board Member Peter Spellios asked if Ramos could share “Grace’s Guide to Environmental Education” with the board and the town.
“There’s so many initiatives that we need help with and we talk about it often, about increasing our education programming, specifically [sustainability,]” Spellios said. “It’d be really cool if we had [‘Grace’s Guide to Environmental Education’], for example, put on the town website.”
Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald also asked if Ramos could come by Town Hall to help with composting, and thanked her for “being a leader.”
The Select Board then presented a citation of appreciation to Ramos from the board and town, recognizing that she received the Gold Award for her “hard work and dedication working on the ‘Mission Penguin’ project.”
