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02/09/2021 02:00 PMKailey Costa, a senior at Valley Regional High School, has earned the highest award available from Girl Scouts, the Gold Award.
Only approximately six percent of girl scouts earn this distinguished honor, which is comparable to the Boy Scouts of America’s eagle scout distinction, according to Girl Scouts of the USA.
The Gold Award is presented annually to young women in grades 9-12 for planning and executing a “Take Action” project.
Costa’s project entailed working with the Chester Historical Society (CHS) to develop a new video titled, Through the Lens: A Tour of Chester, CT, available at chesterhistoricalsociety.org.
At first the idea behind the project was to complement the town’s “Chasing Squirrels” historical walking tours, for which Costa had done the writing and editing, according to CHS President Cary Hull.
It turned into much more than that, as Costa hired a videographer, Taylor Sahl of True Colors Productions, LLC, based in Westbrook, to do some live filming.
In addition to directing, Costa wrote the script and did the voice over and narration for the film.
In order to fulfill the requirements for the Gold Award, which entails seven steps, the project needed to have far-reaching impacts and be “long lasting” in nature, according to Costa.
“Anyone in the world now has a glance of Chester that they never had before and that is the important thing,” said Costa, who added later, that the video makes the town “so much more accessible to people who can’t leave their homes because of COVID, which is a temporary problem, but even for people who don’t live near Chester.”
The new video produced by Costa complements a series of historical videos hosted on CHS’s YouTube channel.
“This is now another historical piece,” said Hull. “What’s especially great about Kailey and Taylor’s film is that it’s Chester today mixed with Chester yesterday, so it should appeal to an even wider audience.”
This is the first Girl Scout Gold Award project that CHS has helped bring to fruition, said Hull, who added that it has helped fulfill CHS’s mission during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been very important to the historical society that we continue to be active during the pandemic,” said Hull. “Even though we haven’t been able to host programs or open the museum to visitors since last March, we are still bringing history to Chester residents and all others who are interested.”
Costa, who is originally from Rhode Island but has lived in Deep River for many years, started girl scouts at an early age. She earned the Girl Scout Bronze Award, the highest honor a junior girl scout can earn, in elementary school.
As an independent girl scout in Connecticut, Costa has been able to apply the volunteer work that she has done with various local organizations, such as the Shoreline Soup Kitchens & Pantries, to earn numerous Girl Scouts of the USA awards and badges.
The Gold Award not only showcases her natural leadership abilities, but many years of dedicated service to the community.
“I was already doing stuff with my community and I thought, ‘Why not just get this title?’” said Costa. “It’s not necessarily common. Not a lot of girls have the ambition to get it.”
Hull, in recognizing the work ethic exhibited by Costa, said “as a VRHS senior, she’s also had to deal with her classes and college applications as she tried to fit the project in, so it took longer than she had hoped, but the end product is worthy of all her efforts.”
The Girl Scout Gold Award was established in 1916 under the name the Golden Eaglet.
Although the highest honor in girl scouting has taken various names over the years, it continues to offer numerous benefits. Girl Scouts of the USA said these include expanded options for scholarships, preferred admission to colleges, and career opportunities.