Westminster senior Katie Griffith earns highest Girl Scout award

Katie Griffith, a senior at Westminster School at Oak Mountain, recently earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor a Girl Scout can receive. 

Griffith earned her Gold Award for her project titled “History in Action,” which focused on giving younger students at her school an interactive learning day and teaching them that history can be exciting. 

To keep fourth-graders engaged in the history classroom, Griffith sewed 48 monk costumes. Every year her school celebrates “Monk Day,” during which the students live a day in the life of a medieval monk: wearing a traditional monk habit, doing chores, listening to Gregorian chants and eating a simple meal of bread, cheese, water and grape juice in silence. 

Griffith said she remembers celebrating Monk Day as a student and how the parents were responsible for making the costumes. 

When she was studying monks again in her junior year, inspiration hit to give back to her school for a project she is passionate about. 

To raise funds for her project, she sewed and sold scrunchies. She collected materials, and with the help of a team, sewed 48 monk costumes that are high-quality enough to last for years. She also compiled research about medieval monks and gave the information to fourth-grade teachers. 

Griffith also created pre- and post-tests to gauge the student’s learning. After analyzing the results, she found the students learned more about monks during the interactive learning day. 

“My Gold Award project has equipped me to achieve any goal I set for myself in the future because I now have more experience solving problems, working hard and delegating work between helpers,” Griffith said. 

Griffith will be recognized for earning her Gold Award at the Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama G.I.R.L. Recognition Ceremony on April 29 at Wallace State in Hanceville. 

– Submitted by Hannah Wallace.