Silver Award Girl Scout, Lorenza Piper

Storybook Trail

For her Silver Award project, Lorenza wanted to focus on a way to give families an activity to do together outside. She decided to merge her passion for reading with her interest in family and community engagement to create a storybook trail. To turn her idea into reality, Lorenza partnered with a variety of community organizations including her Town Council, the local library, and several local businesses.

With assistance from the librarians, Lorenza selected a book that would be easy for young children to read and yet interesting enough for people of all ages. She worked with several skilled volunteers to construct 14 podiums, which she mounted the pages of the book to and then weatherproofed. In order to get permission to erect the storyboards on town property, Lorenza had to give a presentation to her Town Council. For her presentation, she mapped out her proposed trails and how long they were, wrote a proposal, and made a slide show. The Town Council unanimously agreed to Lorenza’s project and they also agreed to maintain the storyboards for the future.

To ensure the sustainability of her project, Lorenza taught the town’s Recreation Director how to replace the storybook pages as needed. Even though Lorenza is finished with her project, she thinks that her leadership skills will grow in the future because she learned that even when things get hard, she can pause, take a deep breath, and try something else to accomplish her goals.