Emma: Turning her passion for helping veterans into a Gold Award project.
Girl Scout Emma has a passion for helping veterans. It’s an interest that started at home: both of Emma’s grandfathers served in the military—one ran an Air Force base in Morocco and the other worked on the Manhattan Project, which earned him a distinguished service award.
When Emma saw the lack of resources available to veterans, she decided to step in and do something about it.
“There are close to 137,000 homeless veterans in Nevada,” she says. “This has been an issue since the Bonus Army of 1932, where World War I veterans had to protest the government for resources from forgotten service.”
After volunteering in Las Vegas with U.S.VETS, a nonprofit working towards ending veteran homelessness across the country, Emma decided to partner with them for her Gold Award project. The organization provides several services to veterans, from providing meals to finding permanent housing for clients. But there was one program that caught her eye.
“I focused on the Dress Vets Program, their initiative to get veterans back into secure jobs and civilian life,” Emma says. “I hosted drives and reminded the public of our forgotten duty to our heroes. Vets need business clothing [for their professional life] to be sustainable. One person needs a wardrobe of many pieces … and the hundreds of pieces collected absolutely fit that.”
She collected business attire for veterans to wear on interviews and at their new jobs. Living in Las Vegas also added a unique layer to her clothing drives. “I added summer clothing to the list of donations for the families of these vets, as they should be comfortable [in order] to be successful,” she says.
Emma spent more than three years working on the project—partly due to her dedication to the cause and partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only was extra care taken to care for the clothing donations by storing and sanitizing them properly; she also began talking with law firms about setting up permanent donation drives to ensure U.S.VETS would have new items coming in regularly.
“I spent my lunch breaks in meetings with different firms and was denied or transferred over and over,” she says. “I kept faith in myself. Eventually, I found a firm and drew up contracts that were signed between the firm and U.S.VETS, and the project continues without my influence.”
Knowing donations will continue to go to U.S.VETS is the aspect of the project of which Emma is most proud.
“The legal piece that took me a couple of years was well worth it,” she says. “The reminder to my local community about veterans was invaluable as I was able to have fulfilling conversations that inspired many to donate and spread the word of donations and continue the help for forgotten heroes.”
