Sequim Girl Scout earns Gold Award accolade

Published 6:30 am Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Nineteen-year-old Skylar Krzyworz of Sequim has earned Girl Scouts’ top accolade and hopes to inspire younger scouts to follow suit.

On June 7, she was one of 26 Girl Scouts in the Western Washington region to earn the Gold Award, scouting’s highest achievement. The 26 scouts collectively contributed more than 3,700 service hours to their communities, according to Girl Scouts of Western Washington.

Krzyworz is the first Girl Scout to receive a Gold Award on the North Olympic Peninsula since 2020 and she hopes more girls will pursue it.

“I want to show younger girls you don’t have to be older and wiser to take action to change something,” she said.

Krzyworz and her mom Heidi said few girls, about 3%-5%, stay in Girl Scouts long enough even to be eligible for the Gold Award.

Girl Scouts, depending on their accomplishments and age, can earn Bronze, Silver and Gold awards.

Krzyworz served in her mom’s Troop 45181 as an Ambassador Scout while a junior and senior in high school. She said her Gold Award is comparable to Scouting America’s Eagle Scout award.

“A Girl Scout has to create her own project from the ground up with a minimum 80-hour project that tackles a root cause of a problem in a community and it must have a measurable impact,” she said.

For her Gold Award project, Krzyworz wanted to address food insecurity and increase access to healthy food for Sequim residents.

After applying for and receiving a grant from Harvest Against Hunger, she partnered with the Sequim Food Bank and the Sequim Boys & Girls Club for a program she called “Gardens to Families” to create garden beds and take-home containers called one-pot gardens (one- to two-liter boxes) for families with limited growing space.

Last summer, she helped build eight planter boxes and two A-frame movable beds. She also held three events with one at the food bank where more than 100 people received one-pot gardens, seed packets, plant starts, low-cost recipe books, and hands-on education about growing food at home.

Another event was held at Elk Creek Apartments where she handed out about 20 one-pot gardens, and a third event was held in conjunction with the food bank’s Mobile Food Pantry at the Vintage at Sequim.

Planning dates back to June 2024, Krzyworz said, and it took a lot of time and effort to obtain the grant and start work. She finished in June 2025 and was pinned with the Gold Award nearly a year after submitting her application.

Krzyworz said her goal was not simply to provide temporary assistance but to create long-term opportunities for education, food production, and self-sufficiency within the community. She was one of a few Gold Award recipients opting to speak at the ceremony saying, “Changing the world does not always mean solving world hunger overnight.

“Sometimes it looks like building a garden bed, handing someone a seed packet, teaching a family how to grow their own food, or simply showing up for your community again and again.”

Keep going

Krzyworz just completed her first year at Pacific Lutheran University, and in the fall will participate in a study abroad program in Mexico as part of her studies in primary education and Spanish so she can teach in two languages overseas.

In Sequim during high school, she served a year as a Sequim Irrigation Festival princess, and as one of the Sequim High School class of 2025’s graduating class’ valedictorians. She also started volunteering on Saturdays at the food bank in fourth grade, and still continues to this day when she’s not at school.

Krzyworz started Girl Scouts as a Daisy in kindergarten and continued until she graduated from high school, the last day a girl can be in scouts. She’s now a lifetime member and can be a co-leader in her mom’s troop.

Through scouts, Krzyworz helped animals, first responders and the general community, and she sold a lot of cookies (25,000 boxes over 13 years) to help her see the world and help others.

During her June 7 car ride home, Krzyworz told her mom she hopes that sharing her story might encourage younger girls to stick with Girl Scouts, dream big, and realize that they can make a difference in their communities.

“Sometimes all it takes is seeing someone from your own hometown accomplish something to realize that you can do it as well,” Heidi said.

Krzyworz said her mom, a former Girl Scout, encouraged her to stick with it even through tough times when she considered quitting.

“Through perseverance, she knew I was capable of doing it,” she said.

Girl Scouts has been filled with life lessons, she’s found.

“(People don’t) see all the trips you go on, the lessons learned, and you learning to tie knots,” Krzyworz said.

Currently, the oldest Girl Scout in Sequim is 14, and Krzyworz said the girl has set a goal to earn her Gold Award too.

“If you’re an older girl, there are troops and it’s as easy as going on the girl scout’s website,” Krzyworz said..

There are 12 troops on the Olympic Peninsula with three in Sequim, six in Port Angeles, two in Port Townsend, and one in Forks.

Find more information about Girl Scouts at girlscouts.org.