Local Girl Scouts have been working hard throughout the year, helping members of the community--and people in need all over the globe. Now they're racking up awards and special recognition for it.

The Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County's Service Unit 18 from Saratoga was applauded during an annual recognition dinner at Redwood Middle School on May 22. A number of local girls earned their Bronze and Silver awards.

Six 10th-grade girls from Troop 461 were presented with their Silver Awards, one of the top honors a Scout can achieve. Among them was Jenna Anderson, who called her special project "Community Hoops."

"I coached a youth basketball team through National Junior Basketball," Jenna says. NJB has a community league in Saratoga, in which she plays, and that's how she got the idea for her project. "I practiced with them and coached them in games. My sister Julia also helped out; she's a Girl Scout, too."

Somya Mathur combined her love of dance with her desire to support local senior citizens for her project, "Dancin' the Night Away."

"I put on a variety show mainly comprised of dances for senior citizens," she says. "I've been interested in and involved in dancing since I was 3, so it just seemed natural to involve it in this project. I wanted to incorporate it because its something I love and I wanted to spend time doing it."

Cara McCann and Amanda Nystrom got their hands dirty--literally--with a project they called "Helping Hands for Kids."

"We went over to Sunday Friends and we set up another activity for them to do," Amanda says. Sunday Friends is a community program that helps homeless and other underprivileged members of the community work to earn food, clothing and household items. Cara and Amanda worked with some children doing arts and crafts. "We had them paint pots, and then on another day we helped them put dirt in them and plant flowers, and we delivered them to a nursing home," says Amanda.

Angela Yung decided to use her Silver Award project to help out her church, West Valley Christian Alliance Church.

"I talked to one of the supervisors and asked him what I could do to help out the church. He said he really needed some cleaning, like the windows and the walls," Angela says. "So I got some of my friends together and advertised a bit at school, and I was able to get many people to come and help clean the church."

Becky Crawford helped beautify a bit of Argonaut Elementary for her Silver Award.

"I built a planter box, and then as a second part, I had some of the younger summer school children help me plant plants in it," Becky says. "It's located next to the school's library."

Ashley Fiance, a fifth-grader from Troop 552, says she and her partner Nicole Fetsch earned Bronze Awards for their project, "Wrapped in Love."

"We sewed blankets and caps for infants' families. They were for mothers who maybe couldn't afford it, or weren't really ready for their babies, or were young mothers," she says. "We picked out fabrics and cut them out, pinned them and sewed them. Then we sent them to Christian groups to give out at local hospitals." Ashley says they got the idea for their project from previous projects within their troop. "We had sewed some blankets as a troop together, but my friend Nicole and I liked it and we thought it was a good cause."

Megan Benzing, Kelsey Owyang, Shivani Chadha and Kimberly Tsai, also fifth- graders from Troop 552, completed a project called "MKKS Petcare"--derived from the initials of their first names.

"We baked dog biscuits and sewed catnip toys and we held a food and pet toy drive at our school, Argonaut Elementary," Kelsey says. "We donated everything to the Humane Society of Silicon Valley."

Fifth graders Varsha Ramesh, Priyanka Arunkumar and Annalise Liberatore from Troop 552 earned their Bronze Awards for "Frosty Fun Girl Scout Style Camp." For this unique project, the girls took a group of Brownies from their school camping. They showed the Argonaut first- and second-graders the ropes by preparing all the food, gathering all the supplies and leading them all the way.

Fifth-graders from Troop 1253 earned their Bronze Award for holding a special bake sale for a San Jose shelter. Sofia Chang, Kellie Chiou, Claire Couch, Katie Cummins, Michelle Cummins, Sarah Hull, Alex Scott and Allie Ven did this project, which was led by Lillian Hull and Sheila Couch.

Fifth-graders from Troop 1255, led by Faithe Liu and Susan Bancroft, decided to teach the children at their school a little bit about the solar system for their Bronze Awards, Bancroft says.

"They painted the solar system on the blacktop of the playground. It included the sun and the nine planets," Bancroft says. "They were drawn as close to the actual colors as they could figure out--they did a lot of research on this. They also painted them to relative size and distance from the sun, and they labeled each of the planets so the schoolchildren could identify them. We did a lot of practice painting. [Afterwards] they developed a game of 'solar tag' that the children can play."

Bancroft says the children submitted a written proposal to the school principal ahead of time, which was approved. Christine Bancroft, Liisa Harvela, Danielle Hata, Kristine Johnston, Nicole Kaiser, Andrea Liu, Christine Liu, Isabel McPherson, Alyssa Peck, Heather Persson, Sophia Wang and Corinne Zelanis worked on the project.

In addition to earning their Bronze Awards, Priyanka Arunkumar and Varsha Ramesh from Troop 554 were presented with the Outstanding Community Service Award for their special project, "Reaching Around the World: Tsunami Relief."

The McGinley family--Catherine, Colm, Sinead, Feargus and Conall--was honored with the Service Unit Family Award.

Jenna Anderson, Cara McCann, Emily Miller, Amanda Nystrom, Laura Rauschmayer, Jennifer Zecchin and Kerry Zweig were presented with their 10-year pins.

Brownies, including first-grader Haley Fetsch from Troop 476, led by Kathy Fetsch, and second-graders from Troop 301, led by Fonda Pallone, were given the Catholic Scouting Religious Recognition Award, "Family of God." A number of Juniors, including third- and fourth-graders from Troop 183, led by Denise Murphy; fifth-graders Nicole Fetsch and Ashley Fetsch from Troop 554, led by Kathy Fetsch; and sixth-graders from Troop 1473, led by Diana Overhouse, were given the Religious Recognition Award "I Live My Faith."

All in all, many girls walked away that night with their sashes just a bit shinier.

Jennifer McBride can be reached at 408.354.3110, ext. 30, or jmcbride@community-newspapers.com.