Gold Award Girl Scout Christina Bear is the first recipient of Girl Scouts of Colorado’s Stephanie A. Foote Leadership Prize for Gold Award Excellence. In 2015, Christina earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouts, for organizing a week-long technology program for Latino students at Horizons Summer Program at Colorado Academy. Through informal learning in computer and robot programming and mini-science experiments, students were engaged and excited about technology. Later that year, she was awarded the Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy Award presented by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Now a student at Harvard University, Christina has a special message to Colorado Bronze, Silver, and Gold Award Girl Scouts.
My name is Christina Bear and I am the first Girl Scout to receive the Stephanie A. Foote Leadership Prize for Gold Award Excellence. Thank you GSCO and thank you Ms. Foote.
There are three pillars of this award that I see every single day.
Excellence. It constantly inspires me to be the best I can be no matter what I do.
Community impact no matter how small or big.
Networking with people having different skill sets and sharing my very own skill sets to be stronger and better as a team.
I attend Harvard University and I’m a junior majoring in Computer Science. My favorite class: CS50. After my freshman year, I was invited to be a Teaching Fellow and I’ve done that for two years. Girl Scouts gave me many opportunities to teach and having confidence to teach makes it smoother.
After my freshman year, I went to Paris and worked with a team of students in an Urban Biology summer elective to find a solution for refugees in Paris who need access to water for bathing and hygiene. From the get go, I led my team to truly create impact for a global challenge. We had to work hard to make our project sustainable (bubblebox.com). I’m happy to share with you our community project won a grant of 25000 euros to further our prototype and I am networking with the engineering department here at Harvard to bring the prototype to fruition. My skills from Girl Scouts of organization, team building, and communication have sure come in handy!
This summer, I will be doing an internship at Facebook. It was like preparing for my Gold Award. Interview skills, resumes, business cards, thank you emails, and follow up letters – all these skills I learned at Girl Scouts came to help me in searching for my internship.
Ms. Foote, the staff members, and Board of Directors of GSCO, and my Gold Award mentor, Ms. RaeAnn Dougherty, I want to thank you. You have given me the gift of empowerment and shown me the importance of community impact which for me has now taken on a global scope.
To all Gold Girl Scouts, Silver, and Bronze, your hard work makes a difference in our community. Grow yourself to be the best you can be. Believe in yourself and trust in your skills set. I am incredibly proud of you!