Even While Hospitalized Twice, Glen Rock Girl Scout Still Helped Other Sick Kids

GLEN ROCK, NJ — Glen Rock High School student Hanna Perez has been a Girl Scout since she was in kindergarten, and she's also spent her life battling Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, an inherited disorder that attacks connective tissues.

In fact, Perez had to be hospitalized twice while she recently worked on her Gold Award project, helping kids with cancer.

“I know firsthand that the first thing I usually forget about when I am sick is hygiene and taking care of myself, so my mom and I made it a tradition to paint my nails in the hospital if I am there for longer than two days," Perez said recently.

Perez and another Glen Rock High School student, Norah Findley, recently received the prestigious Gold Awards from the Girl Scouts for their public service projects.

For her project, Perez, whose mother was her Girl Scout Troop leader, made spa baskets for children who are cancer patients. She also made a video of herself demonstrating how to use the products to “show them that they are not alone," she said.

She partnered with a local organization called The Jay Fund, which supports and helps families with children battling cancer.

The goal of her project was to promote positive mental health and to remind the pediatric cancer patients that they “have to remember to take care of themselves," she said.

The most challenging aspect of Hanna’s project was when she was sick.

“Being sick, doing school work and the project while doing a sport, and working a part-time job, made me extremely busy,” she said.

But she completed her project in June, and hopes her work will help the kids for the rest of their lives.

She learned lessons too, she said. “I learned how to work with a team and face challenges," she said.

She also Thrive Club at Glen Rock High School during her junior year.

"The mission of the club is to reduce stigma around mental health in our school while also creating a safe space for people to just be themselves without judgment and de-stress from a busy day at school,” she said. “We do a lot of service projects as well as some stuff to de-stress and have fun to reduce mental health stigma.”

Norah Findley's Project

Norah Findley, who has been a Girl Scout for 12 years, worked with Lorrimer Nature Sanctuary in Franklin Lakes to restore an area of land that had been devastated by deer.

For her Gold Award project, she removed invasive growths and planted native trees, shrubs, and perennials in the area.

She also held an educational workshop with the Coleman Daisy troop about wildlife habitats, and started an Instagram account dedicated to providing information about native plants and wildlife protection.

Findley finished planting in May of 2023, and throughout the following summer months, she returned to the Sanctuary a few times a week to water the plants. She also had to build individual fenced enclosures for all the plants, since deer had found their way back into the area and started eating them.

“I knew I wanted to work with animals and/or the environment in some way because that’s what I’m passionate about,” Findley said. “Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the division of space in the world, and how there’s hardly any shelter for wildlife left, even in suburbs like Glen Rock.”

She said, “I met with native plant experts, researched different types of plants and the care they required, formulated a list of plants that could be accessed through local nurseries, created a budget, and put together a team of volunteers to help me on planting day. Fundraising was a major hurdle as well because there are certain restrictions on how you can fundraise."

She noted that she learned a lesson: “In order to achieve your goals, sometimes you have to get creative."

See Lorrimer Sanctuary's post about Findley here.