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Andrea Gagnon loves helping others.
So much so that the 17-year-old high school junior spends much of her time volunteering with her church and through Girl Scouts, often taking leadership roles in organizing the efforts.
Her days of helping others started when she was in middle school.
"I think the first project was when my mom was organizing a clothing and resource drive for the Black Forest Fire victims in Colorado," she recalled.
Andrea's father, Ken Gagon, said he is proud of his daughter and has been since the moment she was born.
"She likes to learn. She likes to be able to apply what she learns. So, Andrea has that ability to question the fact, 'Why do I need to learn this?' Once she understands why, she learns it thoroughly," Ken said. "So, that's a quality I'm very proud of. She doesn't learn to forget. She learns to apply."
So, when Andrea learns how she can help somebody, she does it.
With the Girl Volunteer Corp, a group of middle- and high-school-age Girl Scouts who team up to do service projects in the community, she has been involved in many efforts such as building picnic tables for Habitat for Humanity, crafting with seniors at retirement homes and cleaning up the rose garden at Reid Park.
The group meets a few times a month and reaches out to different organizations to see how they can help.
"We helped organize Energize Erickson for Erickson Elementary," Andrea said. "They had budget cuts and their playground and maintenance were falling behind so we partnered with a church and volunteers from the UA and cleaned up the playground and repainted some things. They had a map of the United States on the concrete that was in shambles. It didn't have Hawaii. So, we repainted it for them. We repainted the ramadas and sheds. We put basketball lines back on their court."
She also helped organize the GIRL (Go-getter, Innovator, Risk-taker, Leader) conference, a leadership conference with eight workshops for middle and high school girls, that took place in November.
"They were able to learn some business skills and cooking things," Andrea said. "They were able to talk about women's rights and things important to women. It was just a fun time to bring them together in a fun manner to teach them and give them a voice to be heard and a platform to cultivate ideas and projects."
Her volunteering efforts don't end with the Girl Scouts.
With her church she has volunteered to make and distribute meals at Gospel Rescue Mission, has organized caroling events at nursing homes and is part of an effort to partner with Goshen International to help with its refugee program.
When she's not volunteering, Andrea is focusing on finishing her online high school with "a good GPA," she said. And, while she's not too sure about what she wants to do after high school, she thinks she will always be involved with volunteering and helping others.
"I just love helping other people and making them feel good about themselves and the space that they're in," Andrea said. "It's a rewarding thing for me in knowing that I've helped others."
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