Ocalan earns Girl Scouts Gold Award

Alexis Hatch works on the timber stand improvement project at Camp Wildwood that helped lead to a Girl Scouts Gold Award. [Photo courtesy Girl Scouts of West Central Florida]

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Posted July 18, 2023 | By Susan Smiley-Height, [email protected]

There is a long history of Girl Scouting in Alexis Hatch’s family.

“My mum was a Girl Scout and so was her mum, and then her mum,” Hatch said.

And now, Hatch has achieved the ultimate honor, the Girl Scouts Gold Award.

The Gold Award is the highest achievement a Girl Scout can earn, available to girls in high school who create a significant and sustainable positive change in a community. Hatch was among 32 recipients honored June 10 at the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida’s (GSWCF) Annual Gold Award Ceremony.

The 2023 recipients invested more than 3,200 hours planning and implementing projects that tackled many pervasive issues, according to the organization. Hatch’s project addressed the loss of longleaf pine forests in Florida by improving the health of a longleaf pine forest on the Camp Wildwood property.

According to materials prepared for the ceremony, “longleaf pine is the most fire, insect and disease resistant southern pine species,” yet, according to Arthur Clothier, the Sumter County Forester with the Florida Forest Service, who worked with Hatch, roughly 97% of longleaf pine forests have been lost due to fire exclusion, over harvesting, development and conversion to agriculture.

The bio states that Hatch used the Timber Stand Improvement method of filling drilled holes in the trunks of hardwood trees with the herbicide glyphosate to reduce the number of competing trees. Hatch spread awareness about longleaf pine trees by creating an information board at Camp Wildwood, a brochure that was distributed to community members and the Florida Forest Service, and a website that explained Timber Stand Improvement, the importance of longleaf pines and why longleaf forests are greatly diminished. Hatch’s project will be sustained by younger Girl Scouts who agreed to take over the website and distribution of her brochures.

Hatch was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, but was raised in Ocala. Extracurricular school activities included dance, “ballet mostly but also some tap and hip-hop.” Hatch graduated from Forest High School in 2022.

“I wasn’t much of a club kid, but in senior year I did join the tabletop club and did tech for drama club. Most of my extracurriculars really did just boil down to Girl Scout related stuff,” Hatch said.

Hatch’s mother, Courtney, was the leader of Troop 40278, in which her child was an avid participant, especially when it came to camping.

“We went almost every year to Camp Wildwood to go camping and our troop leaders would reinforce our knowledge of surviving the outdoors: building fires and cooking over them, mainly, parts that I liked the most. I was also able to volunteer with the camp’s horse instructing program for a couple of years and the whole ‘feed, groom, check on horses’ part of it was really my vibe,” Hatch said.

In deciding what to do for the Gold Award project, Hatch said, “I talked to my mum and grandma, as well as others in my troop, to figure out something feasible but also something I would like to do rather than a chore. Talking with Arthur Clothier from the Florida Forest Service came about because he works with Camp Wildwood sometimes and mum encouraged me to talk to him about important nature-related issues I could spread awareness about. Timber Stand Improvement sounded interesting.”

The Gold Award requires 80 hours at a minimum. Hatch said most of the time spent on the project “was setting up the half acre of land that I am enacting the Timber Stand Improvement (TSI) upon and then tending to it. I also had to advocate for my project. I spoke to people and created a website and pamphlets, which I distributed to Camp Wildwood, Arthur’s office at the Forest Service and my local library.”

Clothier is the Sumter County Forester and a certified arborist.

“It was a pleasure and an honor to be Alexis’s technical advisor for the Girl Scouts Gold Award Project. Alexis learned about forest management, silviculture, dendrology, forest ecology and fire ecology,” he said.

“Alexis’s project resulted in several benefits. The timber stand was healthier afterwards because Alexis killed the oaks that were stealing the sunlight from the longleaf pines. Sunlight is normally the limiting factor in forests. Putting more sunlight on the longleaf pines made them grow faster and be more resistant to insects and diseases,” he explained.

“For years to come, Girl Scouts will walk the path where Alexis did the project, and they will see the improved condition of the forest. They will read the interpretive kiosk next to the project and learn about forest management. They will read about how the original longleaf pine forest in the SE USA once covered an area nearly the size of Montana. Only 3% of the longleaf pine forest still exists. They will learn how to conserve and expand the longleaf pine forests for future generations,” Clothier added.

Jill Painter is the High Awards Coordinator for the GSWCF Gold Award program and said that Gold Award Girl Scouts are changing the world.

“Their ingenuity enables them to meaningfully address some of the most pressing issues facing their communities and the world. The Gold Award is the highest achievement in Girl Scouting and only about 5% of eligible Girl Scouts earn the award nationally each year. These Girl Scouts identify an issue that they are passionate about, define a root cause and develop a project that ensures sustainable change. Projects are a minimum of 80 hours and often exceed this requirement. Girls demonstrate and develop their leadership, project management, community building, and decision-making skills, all while making a difference in their communities,” Painter said.

“Beyond personal growth and confidence building, earning the Gold Award is advantageous to college acceptance, earning scholarships, and their professional advancements. Girl Scouts who earn their Gold Award automatically rank up when entering the military,” Painter added.

“Earning the Gold Award is the highest achievement in Girl Scouts that demonstrates you have the courage, confidence and character it takes to meaningfully address some of the most pressing issues facing their communities and the world,” said GSWCF Chief Executive Officer Mary Pat King. “Alexis identified an issue, developed sustainable solutions, built a team and made it happen. Now Alexis is using these honed skills as an AmeriCorps Volunteer, traveling across the country and giving skills and talents to others. I couldn’t be more proud of Alexis.”

Over the past 10 months, Hatch has been involved with the federal AmeriCorps program for ages 18-26.

“You are put on to a team and for 10 months you travel and live together, working at nonprofits that request a team. I’ve worked with a lot of organizations during my term: Habitat for Humanity and a local food bank in Columbia, Missouri; United Way’s VITA program in Pueblo, Colorado; Red Cross in Memphis, Tennessee and in Little Rock, Arkansas;, Cobblestone Farms and Appleseeds Teaching Farm in Fayetteville, Arkansas; and in Kansas City, Kansas working with Rosedale Developments to help restore and build trails that locals use to kind of connect with nature and get around parts of the city a bit easier,” Hatch shared.

“I can’t wait to return home. I plan on returning to work and starting to keep bees and maybe a small garden. Nothing very solid on plans to go to college, but I had the idea to get a degree in anthropology and a minor in astronomy for a while. I want to spend time with family and friends, especially when these 10 months have been the longest span of time I’ve been away from home,” Hatch offered.