Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Hannah Pavlisin Nominated for Girl Scouts' National Young Woman of Distinction Honor




Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois (GSSI) is pleased to announce that Hannah Pavlisin from Lebanon has been nominated for Girl Scouts of the USA’s 2014 National Young Woman of Distinction (NYWOD) honor.

Each Girl Scout council can submit up to three applicants for the NYWOD honor.  This prestigious honor is conferred by Girl Scouts of the USA on Girl Scout Gold Award recipients whose final projects demonstrated extraordinary leadership, had a measurable and sustainable impact and addressed a local challenge that related to a national and/or global issue.  Only ten girls throughout the country receive this special honor each year.

For her Girl Scout Gold Award project, Hannah wanted to help reduce the fear and isolation that many patients at St. Louis Children’s Hospital patients face by providing a fun event to take them away from their troubles for the night.   Her event, named Dare to Dream, offered hands-on activities, fun demonstrations and special guests.

“I’ve always loved interacting with kids and in college I will be studying Nursing,” said Hannah. “It seemed like a perfect fit for me and the hard part was narrowing down all of my ideas!”

First, Hannah transformed a playroom and cafeteria at Children’s Hospital into outer space and created a giant cardboard “above the clouds” castle for children to enjoy.  Next, she set up stations for activities that included making play jet-packs to go along with the space theme, painting art canvasses, decorating cupcakes and creating photo frames.  She also arranged for local firemen, police officers, a pilot, a pastry chef, professional artists and Olympians to talk with children about their jobs, give demonstrations and take photos (to place in the kids’ new photo frames).  At the end of the night, all of the children got teddy bears to take back to their rooms.

Along with fulfilling her desire to cheer up hospitalized children, Hannah was also able to hone her leadership skills by earning her Girl Scout Gold Award.  “I learned so much about myself and working with others,” she said.  “While leadership has always came naturally to me, recruiting and directing those older than me was a new challenge.”

If selected as a National Young Woman of Distinction, Hannah will receive a $5,000 academic scholarship made possible by the Kappa Delta Foundation and will be nationally recognized at the 2014 National Council Session/53rd National Convention of Girl Scouts of the USA.

Hannah is the daughter of James and Pennie Pavlisin.  She is a GSSI Trifecta Award winner for earning her Girl Scout Bronze Award, Girl Scout Silver Award and Girl Scout Gold Award.   She is currently a senior at O’Fallon Township High School and plans to attend Bradley University to study Nursing in the fall.