Amy Bellinghiere Amy Bellinghiere, a senior at Oak Park High School, recently earned the Girl Scout Gold Award from the Girl Scouts of California Central Coast.

The Gold Award is the highest achievement that a girl can earn in Girl Scouts.

To earn the award, the Scout must, among other things, complete 30 hours in a leadership position, 40 hours of career exploration and a minimum of 65 hours on a major project which will have a lasting impact on the community.

Nationwide, only four out of 100 girls in grades 10 through 12 are Girl Scouts. Of these, fewer than 6 percent reach the Gold rank.

Amy has been a Girl Scout for more than 11 years as a member of Troop 60972 in Oak Park. Dur- ing her years in Scouting she has also earned the Girl Scout Silver and Bronze awards as well as the Presidential Service Award.

Amy’s Gold Award project consisted of more than 110 hours of planning, organizing and putting on a three-day, two-night adventure skills campout. The purpose of the camp was to teach teens basic survival skills useful in the outdoors, an earthquake or other emergency situation.

The skills included how to use a compass; fire building; cooking over a campfire, on a camp stove and in a Dutch oven; how to build a shelter; lashing; and knot tying.

Amy thanks the teens and the youth leaders from St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church who helped teach and run the camp, as well as all of the participants.

Laura Diaz, the youth director at St. Maximilian, and the Fasani, Rajavel and Suzumoto families also assisted.