Girl Scouts offer a multitude of opportunities and what began as a way for Emma Bayer, then in kindergarten, to make new friends progressed into a commitment.
“As I got older my parents left the option to me as to whether or not I wanted to stay in it. I really enjoyed all the opportunities I had gotten from it so I was dedicated to staying all throughout my senior year,” she said.
The 16-year-old attends Cobb Online Learning Academy, lives on a farm, shows and competes with her three horses and loves gardening.
Her cup runs over with community involvement outside of school. Bayer runs a charity with her dad called Em-Powerment that focuses on raising funds and awareness in the fight against breast cancer. The five-time Master 4-H’er also volunteers for service opportunities for others less fortunate and works with animal shelters, the Powder Springs resident said.
After completion of a Journey (Girltopia) and earning the Silver award with Troop 2966 for animal enrichment at Zoo Atlanta, the final step was the Gold award.
Bayer’s focus is to bring awareness to older pets.
“One of the base things that kind of led me to choose senior pets was we had two senior pets that passed away and seeing a lot of things on social media, especially through shelters that we work with we saw an increase in senior pets being returned,” she stated. “It broke my heart.
“I thought that this would be a good project for me to take on because it’s something that I can connect to on such an emotional level and I have a lot of resources to be able to make a difference in my community. The thing about the Gold award is they want you to make a lasting change in your community and I’m hoping that I’m able to do that.”
This past September Bayer won second place at the North Georgia State Fair for her hay bale decorating.
“Our main goal was to spread this message to lead to a larger audience or population because the main focus of my project is to raise awareness, resources and adoption of senior pets. We won $500 which was split up among three different shelters that we picked: local - Paulding Humane Society ($100), state – Atlanta Humane Society ($200) and national – The Gray Muzzle Organization ($200),” Bayer noted.
In her drive to continue to raise funds, an eBay auction of pet-related drawings opened up last Sunday that will run through this month. Mostly Mutts Animal Rescue will receive money made from any local artist who donated and then any others donated outside of the area (national spectrum) will go to The Gray Muzzle organization.
Bayer said, “The number one bullet point for Girl Scouts is that being involved in your community can make such a difference, even if it’s a difference you may not notice or may not ever realize because I feel like sometimes we take a lot of things for granted.
“Outside of making new friends and new connections, what I’ve learned from girl scouts is you have to put yourself out there to be able to accomplish the things that you want to achieve and I think girl scouts is a good way to do that because it gives you so many opportunities to put yourself in situations that may challenge you.”
Visit: http://www.ebay.com/usr/diract22
Each Sunday we write about a deserving person or charity events such as fun-runs, volunteer projects and other community gatherings that benefit a good cause. To submit a story for us to cover, send to ajc.doinggood@gmail.com.
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