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Three Severna Park young women recently received the prestigious American Heritage Girls (AHG) Stars & Stripes Badge: Alethia Brown in August, Olivia Sudano in July and Maile Trelles in February.
American Heritage Girls is a national organization focused on character development for girls ages 5–18. It offers various hands-on learning experiences while promoting Christian values. According to the AHG website, the award is the organization’s highest honor, emphasizing leadership, faith and personal growth, with strict requirements.
Girls must earn a total of 16 advanced badges and serve as a troop leader for at least six months. They are also required to plan and lead a service project of over 100 hours, write a “spiritual walk” essay, gather three letters of reference, and successfully pass a review board.
All three girls’ projects provided a benefit — or one could say a “blessing” — to the community.
Alethia’s Stars & Stripes project focused on compassion. Working through Severna Park Baptist Church (SPBC), where her father Dave Brown serves as lead pastor, she led in starting a “blessing bag” project for individuals needing a helping hand. The church supports SPAN (Serving People Across Neighborhoods), but Alethia said some individuals need extra help to get through a challenging period.
“There are three types of bags — food, hygiene and infant bags,” she said.
The food bags include bottled water and nonperishable foods such as peanut butter and jelly, crackers and other easy-to-eat items to stretch a limited budget. Hygiene bags provide washcloths, toothpaste, shampoo, nail clippers and other similar items. Infant bags include diapers, formula, and small snacks for babies and toddlers.
Alethia, who graduated from Severna Park High School in June, organized the project and supervised volunteers in collecting food items and assembling 30 bags. She also oversaw the building of a cabinet to store the bags and supplies. “There was a lot of extra because the church was just so generous with their food donations, as well as monetary gifts,” she said.
The Severna Park AHG Troop MD0152 will continue to support the project through fundraising events like craft fairs and yard sales to keep the new cabinet full. “They will sell different jewelry or paintings and other items to raise funds for the project,” Alethia explained.
A senior at Chesterton Academy in Annapolis, Olivia constructed a prayer garden dedicated to the Seven Sorrows of Mary, located at St. John the Evangelist Church, her home church and the spot where AHG troop MD4205 meets.
Olivia said she wanted to create a quiet space the community could use to “escape from their busy lives and refocus on the bigger picture, which is faith.”
On her GoFundMe page, she wrote: “It will also give the teachers at the school on campus an area to take their students and to use as a teaching aid for the young kids. In addition, it will open up the possibility for girls in my troop to earn service hours through maintaining the garden. Overall, the addition of this prayer garden will benefit the church, school and community for what I pray to be a very long time.”
Olivia said, “I think this award inspires younger girls as they are deciding what they want to do and following through. It also gives me a sense of pride knowing I was able to do something difficult, something I’ve never done before.”
She emphasized that perseverance is an important part of the AHG creed, as well as showing younger girls they can achieve what they set their minds to.
Maile, who also attends AHG meetings at St. John the Evangelist Church, was homeschooled and graduated from high school in May, combining classes with tutors and completing dual enrollment courses at Anne Arundel Community College. She has been part of American Heritage Girls for 12 years.
For her Stars & Stripes project, Maile worked with The Well in Curtis Bay and its affiliated Hons Honey Marketplace, transforming a room above its coffee shop. “I painted a focal wall, added art and fundraised for furniture to complete a meeting space,” she said.
“I chose the project because I enjoy serving in underserved communities and especially have a heart for supporting women. The Well was founded in 2013, and Hons Honey was founded in 2018. The Well is a community of women coming out of abusive and trafficking situations, being transformed through long-term relationships, practical programs, and the healing power of love.”
For more information about American Heritage Girls and to find a troop, visit www.americanheritagegirls.org.
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