Telayne Keith is a senior Girl Scout with Troop #90-358.

This is her 10th year in Girl Scouting and she’s a 10th grader at Our Lady of the Elms High School.         

 Keith is a gifted artist and enjoys working with crafts. For the past two years, she has been in charge of providing activities for prospective Girl Scouts. She also participated and led an informational booth at NASA Glenn this past February, designing her own presentation and an interactive display about Mars for over 100 junior Girl Scouts to experience.  

Additionally, she serves as the service unit disc jockey for Girl Scouts events and helps plan and participate in the service unit’s yearly Valentine card workshop. 

Being a teenage Girl Scout has been difficult in the past two years, especially when her best friends dropped out but Keith has found a way to make scouting a program for her and participating in activities and experiences that fits her personality as well as provides value in her life.   

She loves the traveling and the planning involved, including the budgeti

Because of the volunteerism spirit of Girl Scouting, Keith has found it easy to complete her community service components needed for school.   

Her problem is that she has too many hours and volunteer experiences to choose from at the end of the year.  Last year, when she started high school, she admitted to being embarrassed to tell her peers she was still a Girl Scout but found herself defending Girl Scouts to others, describing her experiences and the scholarship opportunities to them.  

By the end of the conversation, they wanted to be Girl Scouts.    

he is a Girl Scouts’ 1,000 Box Club Member from 2004-2009, Diversity and Academic Scholarship recipient representing Our Lady of the Elms High School; Academic and Citizenship award and scholarship recipient from St. Anthony of Padua, Akron when in the 8th grade. She was also involved in student government at St. Anthony School serving as the 8th grade class secretary.     

Her volunteerism includes work at Gennersaret Family Nutrition Center, serving needy families.  Helping to create the “Christmas Shoebox Campaign” with fellow Girl Scouts in Troop #358 in 2002 and continuing to plan the yearly event and staff the drop-off locations that promote the necessity of collecting hygiene and Christmas items families in shelters.  She works with the Hugs N Gloves Project by collecting hats, gloves and socks for children and teens in need as a day of service participant, something she’s done for 4 years.   

She is also a member of the city of Akron Peacemakers, a group of young people who are committed to improve the quality of life for teens in Akron and identifying areas in their community needing change and coming up with a plan to change it.   

She credits her experience in running a meeting and working as a team as skills learned from Girl Scouting and has proven to be a leader in the group.