STATEWIDE

Nine Girl Scouts receive Gold Awards for action projects

Girl Scouts of Maine recently honored nine Girl Scouts with Gold Awards, the organization’s highest achievement that recognizes leadership potential in girls in grades nine through 12 for Take Action projects they completed this year.

The scouts’ accomplishments were recognized at the council’s annual meeting and awards ceremony at the Augusta Civic Center.

This year’s awardees are Bailee Bartash of Lincoln, Ariel Bouchard of Brunswick, Kelly Bridge of Berwick, Heather Brown of East Orland, Olivia Duron of Hampden, Sarah Draper of Caribou, Samantha McGarrigle of Hampden, Paige Rainford of Hampden and Deidre Sachs of Freeport.

This year’s Gold Award projects included designing educational programs for local children, building a garden for a community soup kitchen to offset the cost of fresh produce and improving the awareness of the importance of caring for the environment.

WISCASSET

Environmental foundation awards five middle schools

Last September, Chewonki challenged Maine middle school students to develop and submit plans to help their schools save money and resources by evaluating and reducing their waste streams.

Last week, the environmental education and stewardship foundation awarded five schools with the Chewonki Zero Waste Challenge cash awards for their innovative ideas.

Those were Gorham, Westbrook, JA Leonard of Old Town, Troy Howard of Belfast, and Brunswick middle schools.

Awards were given to schools that analyzed their waste stream data and then created a systems approach to reducing their trash flow as much as possible.

Westbrook Middle School took a particularly innovative approach by creating an entire website illustrating their zero waste efforts — complete with videos and graphs — and tailored to mirror the waste reduction steps in Chewonki’s educational Zero Waste poster.

WELLS

Students win in Newspaper in Education contest

This spring, eight Wells High School art students placed in the annual Newspaper in Education contest sponsored by the Bangor Daily News.

The black and white, line-drawn editorial cartoons, along with winning drawings or written editorials from many other Maine Grade 3 to 12 student contestants, were featured in the paper’s March 21 edition.

Senior Charles Taylor received first place and a $1,000 scholarship for his submission. Jordan Agger and Allivia Lorusso each tied for second place and $500 in the seniors category.

Maria Goodale received first place in the junior category. Sisters Bethany and Sarah Berger tied for second.

In the sophomore category, Alyssa Chase placed first, and Angela Leone was recognized as runner-up. In the freshman category, Sydnie Sayward placed first and Keri Allaire and Kyle Durost were runners-up.

All are students of Wells High School art teacher Vanessa White-Capelluti.