Two Albert Lea girls are the first in Freeborn County to earn one of Girl Scouting’s newest and highest honors: the Girl Scout Bronze Award.

Jill Barnick, daughter of Dawn and Dave Barnick of Albert Lea, and Mary Wangen, daughter of Sharon and Matthew Wangen of rural Albert Lea, received the Bronze Award during a special bridging ceremony last week at Grace Lutheran Church.

The girls are members of Troop 219 of the Girl Scout Council of River Trails, which meets at St. Theodore Catholic Church.

There are four main requirements to earn the Bronze Award. The first three help the Girl Scout build skills and prepare them for the fourth requirement: a Girl Scout Bronze Award project.

The first step is to earn two Junior Girl Scout badges that are related to their project. Both earned the Healthy Relationships and Across Generations badges.

The second step is to earn one of the Girl Scout signs. They earned the sign of the star. There are many steps required to earn a sign.

The third step has several different options and the girls chose to earn two more Junior badges: Girl Scouting in the U.S.A. and Lead On.

The final step is the Bronze Award project. The project should provide community service and should take seven to eight hours.

Jill and Mary both chose to donate their time to visit the residents at St. John’s Lutheran Home, helping with bingo and snack time. They both exceeded the requirements and contributed over 10 hours to this project.

Both girls have been in Scouting since first grade. Mary is a sixth-grader at Sibley, and Jill is a sixth-grader at Hawthorne.

Jill and Mary both enjoy selling cookies to go to camp and have as their goals going on in Scouting and earning both Gold and Silver awards in the future.

&uot;I want to stay in and be a leader someday,&uot; Jill said.