Going for gold

Scout goes for award with activity book, five other Scouts work on award projects

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by JESSE YEATMAN Stacey Tilghman, a rising senior at Leonardtown High School, sits with copies of a booklet of activities for preschoolers that she collected and designed as a project for her Girl Scout Gold Award. She hopes local groups will continue to publish the booklet each summer. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

The Gold Award is the highest honor a female Scout can receive, and Tilghman’s project involved more than 80 hours of work and a detailed binder with contact information, log records and other documentation.

By late May thousands of copies of the ‘‘Summer Fun With Your Little One” booklet were distributed through public libraries, prekindergarten programs and preschools.

‘‘I endeavored to make a booklet of fun and educational things for parents to take their kids and help them get ready for school,’ Tilghman said.

A recent state report showed only about two-thirds of students entered kindergarten this school year fully prepared. Only about half of St. Mary’s black kindergartners were fully prepared, a number significantly lower than the state average.

Tilghman, who will be a senior at Leonardtown High School next year, learned about those disturbing statistics from her neighbor, Lynn Duff, who runs a preschool. With Duff as her adviser, she laid out a plan and began compiling hundreds of events that will occur in June, July and August. The booklet also contains information about county library programs and reading clubs as well as parks, museums and entertainment venues in St. Mary’s.

‘‘It seemed like it was a need” for a comprehensive list, she said.

About one-third of children start kindergarten in St. Mary’s unprepared academically, according to a state study. However, in past years, school officials said that 90 to 95 percent of children exiting kindergarten tested as prepared for first grade, showing that most of the lag in knowledge is made up that year.

With the help of other Girl Scouts, she compiled the information from county government community calendars, The Enterprise’s Guide to St. Mary’s supplement, through contact with local organizations and recommendations from county residents, Tilghman said. She put in more than 80 hours herself.

The plan was to initially print about 2,000 copies. That was upped to 5,000.

‘‘It grew from just those students at risk to everyone,” said her mother, Tammy Tilghman. ‘‘In a span of three weeks or less, the original 5,000 were gone.”

‘‘The booklets flew off my shelf,” Duff said. ‘‘We are now Xeroxing them for new parents to the area because they have become so sought after.”

As her project adviser, Duff checked in withÊStacey each month on the progress. The St. Mary’s County Early Childhood Development Team also helped with developing the booklets and printed the copies. Thanks to a binder full of contact information, the team will be able to reprint updated copies of the booklets each year.

‘‘She is a brilliant young woman,” Duff said.Ê‘‘I hope we can continue her work for years to come.” She said the booklet is packed with ‘‘with all the oodles of information.”

Girl Scout Troop 1687, led by Tilghman’s mother, was whittled down over the years from about 17 girls to just six this year. However, all six of the remaining Scouts are going for the Gold Award this year. Stacey Tilghman is the first to receive the award, but three of the other Scouts have been approved to begin the work on their projects and the other two are in the process of writing their proposals to submit to the Girl Scout Council. They hope all six projects will get the Gold Award by October — the honor is a nice addition to college applications, the troop leader said.