City Council Commends Two Local Girl Scouts

The Rosemount City Council commended two 2011 Rosemount High School graduates Monday evening for their recent accomplishment as Girl Scout Gold Award winners.

Celia Peloquin and Meghan Sable were both awarded the Gold Award, which is the highest level of accomplishment in Girl Scouts. The award entails a project that requires a minimum of 80 hours of community service throughout several months, according to Mayor Bill Droste.

Nationwide, last year, about 5,500 girls received the Girl Scout Gold Award. Droste told the council and audience members Monday that in the River Valley Girl Scouts unit, which covers the Twin Cities, southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, more than 10,000 hours have been contributed by scouts in the past year working on Gold Award projects.

Peloquin organized a project with the purpose of educating teens about hunger in the community. She told council she has been actively volunteering at the Eagan Resource Center, and had asked groups of teens to bring in as much food as they could to the event. They raised about 1.5 tons of food. In addition, she provided a presentation to approximately 120 Dakota County teens and adults about the Eagan Resource Center.

Peloquin will be going to college at Concordia College-Moorhead this fall to study nursing.

Sable's Gold Award project was to create an eco-friendly way of controlling mosquitoes in local parks. One of her ideas was to construct six bat houses, which were placed in two parks. Sable debunked some common myths about bats at Monday night's meeting, and informed council and the audience about how well bats keep mosquito populations at bay.

In addition, Sable organized a workshop to educate the public on bats and workshop participants were invited to build their own houses.

Sable plans to attend the University of Minnesota-Rochester this fall and study health sciences.