Silver Award Spotlight: Rocks for Mental Health
The challenges of today’s world don’t only affect grownups. Young people—especially girls—are facing mental health challenges of their own. Girl Scouts take the challenge of using their leadership skills to help others. Supporting others as they grow and face life’s complexities is a top priority for Girl Scout Cadette Kinsley of Troop 322. That’s why she chose to help other find happiness through her Silver Award project, “Rocks for Mental Health.”
To complete this project, Kinsley helped revitalize and update the Season for Nonviolence parklet in Virginia Beach with the support of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) of Coastal Virginia. In 2022, the Season for Nonviolence parklet was created on Cypress Avenue at 20th Street in the ViBe creative district of Virginia Beach and regularly serves to bring the community together through art and outreach events. The Season for Nonviolence is celebrated annually by NAMI and their supporters from January 30 to April 4 as “a national 64-day educational, media, and grassroots campaign dedicated to demonstrating that non-violence is a powerful way to heal, transform, and empower our lives and our communities.”
“I decided to work with NAMI because mental health is very important to me, and I wanted to spread the word with my fellow Girl Scouts and my community. For this reason, I took on helping to revive the Season for Nonviolence parklet, located at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.”
Kinsley painted rocks with inspirational messages that were placed around the park and helped to beautify the property, tending to the upkeep of garden beds.
Congratulations, Kinsley!
