Karma for Cara Foundation awards microgrants to youths 18 years of age and younger who spearhead exceptional service projects in their communities. 15 year old Emma from Arlington VA started a project called Why Pollinators Matter with her award. Two years prior she began beekeeping, but the colony died because of pesticides. Emma now has successful hives, and her project involved educating the community about the importance of honey bees. Emma made presentations at local pre-, elementary and middle schools. She also offered personal hive visits to families so they could see inside a hive and learn how it works.

1. How many volunteers participated in your project? How many hours did it involve? This project was primarily completed by me because the Girl Scout Gold Award is an individual project. I put about 80 hours into the project.
2. What did you learn from this experience? Through working with elementary school children and parents, I have learned a lot about good teaching strategies, keeping children engaged, and how to generally work better with others.
3. How will your project continue having an impact in the future? This project will have a lasting impact in the future because of the knowledge that community members gained by visiting my beehives. These people will carry with them more awareness of pollinators and have a deeper understanding of how to protect the pollinators.
4. Overall, summarize how your project was completed and how you think it went. This project was completed in many steps. The first part of the project was having community members come to visit the beehives. The second part of the project was visiting elementary schools and Girl Scout troops and presenting on pollinators and why they are important. Over 220 children have been reached through this part of the project.
5. How was the Karma for Cara microgrant helpful in the completion of your project? The Karma for Cara microgrant has been helpful in the completion of this project by allowing me to purchase beekeeping suits for the community hive visits, as well as “Save the Bees” buttons and Girl Scout badges for the school presentations.