Seneca High School student makes puppets with a purpose

Lauren Sander is putting the gold into Golden Eagle.

A senior at Seneca High School, Lauren recently received her Gold Award from the Girl Scouts for partnering with her sister Nicole to educate young students about the effects of bullying.

The Girl Scout Gold Award represents the highest achievement in Girl Scouting. Open only to girls in high school, the prestigious award challenges girls to change the world or at least their corner of it, and be eligible for college scholarships, too. To receive her Gold Award, Lauren had to identify an issue, investigate it, create and present a plan then use that plan to help solve the problem as well as educate and inspire others.

Lauren and Nicole built a stage and created puppets to perform shows in the community illustrating how to prevent bullying. In her research, Lauren found that teaching kids at an early age about bullying prevention is the best time to start.

“We wanted to approach a younger audience so that hopefully these kids have not experienced being bullied and this will help prevent that,” Lauren said.

The sisters performed shows at schools and churches in the area that focused on bullying as well as cyber-bullying. Videos of the performances were uploaded to YouTube, and after receiving her Gold Award, the sisters donated the stage and puppets to the safe and sound program of the Tabernacle School District to be used in the future.

Lauren began Scouting in kindergarten as a daisy and loved the experience right away.

“There are a lot of different patches spread out across so many things and activities that it was like being in mini clubs,” Lauren said. “It let me try so many new things that I hadn’t done before, so I really liked it.”

Unfortunately, her troop disbanded while Lauren was in middle school, but a group of seven girls with the help of Lauren’s mom, Tracy, kept the meetings going.

Lauren is a senior at Seneca and involved with the National Honor Society, girls tennis team, chamber singers, spring musical and Spanish club. She is looking to continue her studies at either Montclair State or Westminster Choir College. Her aspiration is to teach, and what she learned about preventing bullying will stick with her.

“Bullying affects education, so it’s something I would to continue to do. Talking about it and educating people about its impact on kids,” Lauren said.