0,1865002.story?coll=ny-linews-headlines, Guatemala RPCV Sarah Lansdale is acting director of the nonprofit Sustainable Long Island
Scouts' gold rush on special awards
Scouts' gold rush on special awards
By Rhoda Amon
Staff Writer
June 11, 2004
When Sarah Lansdale was a Girl Scout, she set up a paper recycling program in the Garden City Middle School.
Recycling was just beginning on Long Island 12 years ago, and the students happily deposited their excess exam papers, compositions and handouts as they cleaned out their lockers at the close of the school year. Lansdale found a recycling company that would pay the school for the paper deluge. She was rewarded with a Gold Award, the Girl Scouts of the USA's highest achievement, equivalent to the Eagle Scout for the Boy Scouts.
"It was my first success in the environmental field, and I felt if I could do that, I could do anything," said Lansdale, 30, now acting director of the nonprofit Sustainable Long Island.
Lansdale spoke at a ceremony Sunday for a record 51 Gold Award recipients held by the Girl Scout Council of Nassau County at Molloy College in Rockville Centre. The number of Gold Award recipients has tripled since Lansdale was one of 17 in 1992.
Similarly, the Girl Scout Council of Suffolk County, largest in the state, had a record 80 Gold Award achievers, "the best year ever," a spokeswoman said. Senior scouts follow a three-year program, which includes creating their own community service project. They're encouraged to follow their own interests while meeting a community need.
Lansdale said she stayed the course because "I saw the value in all I was learning." Raised in Mitchel Field in the Garden City area, the daughter of an Air Force officer, she joined the Peace Corps, serving in Guatemala, after completing environmental and agriculture economics studies at the University of Vermont. Her goal was to help family farms stay in business and preserve open space. Lansdale has headed Sustainable Long Island since former executive director Patrick Duggan was named a deputy county executive earlier this year.
