Sparta girl scout earns gold award

SPARTA — Melissa DiSanti, of Troop 70992, has earned the Gold Award from Girl Scouts of the USA.

The award represents the highest and most prestigious achievement in girl scouting.

The Gold Award challenges girls to change the world with a leadership project of at least 80 hours. Each girl must discover an issue in her community, connect with experts and community members, and take action to affect positive change.

DiSanti has earned both the silver and bronze awards as well.

She was given a tour of Birth Haven when she delivered $300 worth of baby items from their "Needs List."

At that time, she saw that the storage room was in need of organization.

After speaking with the staff, DiSanti was given the go ahead to renovate the room. The room houses most of the donations that come in from the community.

She had to come up with a system that would make it easy for the staff to locate, store and take inventory of their shelves. She did extensive research online to come up with a bin system that worked best for Birth Haven.

Birth Haven is a nonprofit maternity shelter for homeless, expectant mothers between the ages of 17 and 21.

DiSanti spent countless hours at the residence installing the shelf systems, counting the items donated, and color-coding the inventory for identification. She also repurposed items such as a file cabinet and added toiletries to the drawers.

DiSanti is a recent graduate of Sparta High School and has been accepted into the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University. She will be majoring in Music Therapy.