12 Thursday, June 20, 2024 BATTLE CREEK SHOPPER NEWS http://www.thebattlecreekshopper.com
Exceptional Surgical Care
Bronson Battle Creek Hospital has more surgeons and specialists
and more advanced technology than ever before. In fact, we’re
the preferred destination for surgery in Calhoun County. Our
highly skilled teams perform a wide range of procedures with the
support of anesthesiologists who are inhouse 24/7 to ensure patient
comfort during surgery and the days of recovery that follow. When
you choose Bronson for surgery, you get quality care and a team that knows how
to make your healthcare experience an exceptional one!Learn more at bronsonhealth.com/surgery.and Daniel Osterhart and she has
plans to attend Michigan State
University (Lyman Briggs) to study
biology.
She has already landed Merit
Scholarships at GVSU, CMU,
WMU, an alumni scholarship and
two Merit Scholarships at Michigan
Technological University.
Behnke is the daughter of Heather
and Andy Behnke and she said her
plans are to attend the University of
Michigan and study biology on a pre-
med track.
Both Osterhard and Behnke are
previous recipients of the Girl Scout
Bronze and Silver Awards and said
they wanted to achieve the Gold
Award to not only give back to the
community but to boost their abilities
to win college scholarships.
And, both said they loved grow-
ing up as Girl Scouts due to the wide
variety of experiences, like traveling
to Paris and Washington D.C, and,because they learned more about their
community through community ser-
vice projects and because they made
new friends through scouting.
To achieve the Gold Award,
Osterhart organized multiple efforts
over nearly two years to improve the
S.A.F.E. Place experience for the
children of domestic violence victims
staying with them at the shelter, she
said.
“We kind of aim to make the place
a little bit more bright and cheery,
welcoming for the children coming
in, specifically, the younger ones,”explained Osterhard. “We got a
couple baby bouncers and a couple
baby swings for the different play
rooms there. We did a whole holiday
drive with toys and games, clothes,
toiletries, a bunch of necessities.
So we got a ton of stuff from that.
Blankets, things like that. We held a
couple movie nights. And then kind
of like, I guess the biggest part that
we did was work with a local art-
ist to repaint a mural on the outside
fence.”
The mural, she said, was also
designed to be “bright and cheery”.
“A lot of people there were like
really excited about what we did
with the paint and stuff coming in
and then at the end,” she said, “we
did a celebration field day with some
of the kids and their moms or parents
or whoever.”
Behnke said she chose to gear her
efforts more toward teenagers who
find themselves with a parent or
guarding at S.A.F.E. Place by trans-
forming an under used room into a
comfortable, safe space for teens to
hang out.
“I worked with the people at the
shelter and I got a bookshelf, a lamp,
decorations, a desk and chair,” said
Behnke, “pretty much a lot of stuff
that like would create this nice envi-
ronment for teens to either just go
and read a book, go do homework,
because a lot of them are obvi-
ously like in high school and middle
school. Or just like you know, hang-
ing out because it’s not in the room
or it’s kind of a quiet space with
some walls and it’s for some pri-
vacy.”
She also organized a donation
drive, she said.
“We had the donation drive here
at Happy House (gift shop) to build
welcome totes,” explained Behnke.
“So there was a lot of toiletries, but
then the goal of it was to collect stuff
that aren’t necessarily necessities,
but just kind of some fun stuff that
they don’t think about like there was
like nail polish, or like, like fun hair
ties. Just some non-necessity fun
stuff.”
Both projects required 80 hours
of work in order to meet the Gold
Award requirements and both
involved planning, record keeping
and reporting.GIRL SCOUTS
Continued from Page 11
See AWARD on 13