Rachel Mittelman and Jeanette Smith of Girl Scout Troop 288 planned, organized and taught Camp Little Einsteins, as their Girl Scout Gold Award Project, a day camp for boys and girls in grades 2-5.

Most residents of Fayette County are very familiar with the Boy Scout rank of Eagle Scout; however, many do not realize that the Girl Scouts have a similar program called the Gold Award. In order to complete a Girl Scout Gold project, a scout must first be fifteen years old and/or completed the 9th grade. The scout must successfully complete in depth prerequisites including four interest badges, 30 leadership hours, 40 college and career hours (where the scout visits colleges, volunteers at places of their career interest, or holds a regular job), as well as an assessment of needs in the community. After these prerequisites are complete, the Girl Scout writes a project proposal. This proposal is presented to a committee from the Girl Scout Council, and the girl is interviewed to determine if her project will be accepted. The Girl Scout must spend at least 65 hours in preparation, planning, and implementation of the Gold Project. With the prerequisites and project, it takes at least 135 service hours to earn this highest award in girl scouting.

Mittelman and Smith have been active in Troop 288 for nine and eleven years, respectively. During their years of Girl Scouting, the ten girls in troop 288 have completed numerous community service hours helping various local organizations, planned and lead the International Festival for their service unit for two years and planned the fall 2004 service unit camp-out “Pirates of Pine Valley,” for which they earned their Silver Award.

Both scouts enjoy learning new things and prefer hands-on education. Each of them brought different strengths to their Gold Award Project. The girls began planning for the day camp in November 2005 as they researched possible needs in the Fayette County area. They saw a need for a low cost academic camp for upper elementary age children.

Camp Little Einsteins was held June 5-9 at Peachtree City United Methodist Church at Windgate Campus from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. each day. The 22 campers created crafts, sang songs, played games, did science experiments and learned about history and drama. Each day had a different theme: Time Travelers, Medieval Times, Twentieth Century, Old West, and Pirates. Friday was concluded with a water balloon game. The students said that their favorite activities of the week included making and launching their own paper tiger rockets as well as building a castle out of recyclable products. The children who attended the camp left with an appreciation of how fun learning can be.

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