When Lily Sassani set out to earn her Girl Scout Gold Award, she knew that she wanted to bring together her Jewish identity and her years in scouting. She created a Holocaust Education Patch Program in partnership with the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh.
Sassani, 18, who lives in Lower Burrell, a city outside of Pittsburgh, said as a Jewish Girl Scout, she was part of “an active service unit that helped me grow into someone that upholds the Girl Scout code, which encourages us to be sisterly and model leadership.”
She told JNS that growing up in an area with a small Jewish presence came with challenges. “My Jewish faith has little representation in my area, and for a long time I felt othered in the sense that I didn’t have Jewish friends or role models outside of my family to confide in about the struggles I faced,” she said.
“It was difficult for me to grow up where the ignorance of Jewish history and culture could not be combated by a strong Jewish presence,” Sassani added.
“That is why, for my Gold Award—the highest honor a Girl Scout can earn before she graduates—I aimed to create a project to bridge the gap between my Jewish and Girl Scout identities by involving myself in both communities,” she said.
Sassani said she was motivated by the “undiscussed yet astonishing resistance work of the Girl Guides and Scouts during the Holocaust.”
“I learned a lot doing this project, about myself and about the subject, but I think what really surprised me the most was the lengths to which Guides went to save people affected by the Holocaust, and how little the general public knew about it,” she said.
Guides “did things like dig trenches, hide prisoners from concentration camp selection processes, free prisoners in ghettos, deliver information within camps and so much more.”
“I think we owe it to all the girls and women who risked and lost their lives for a better world, to remember their stories and embody their courage,” she added.
Sassani explained that “a badge and a patch are two separate entities in Girl Scouts.”
“This project was to create a patch,” she said. “Which is different in the sense that I can have more creative freedom and control over regulating it, whereas a badge requires more supervision from the council.”
‘Make the world better’
The curriculum, designed and written by Sassani, mentored by Emily Loeb and Julia Gaetano of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, follows the Girl Scouts’ three-part format: Discover, Connect and Take Action.
In the Discover phase, participants engage with a required curriculum video and optional interviews. The Connect phase encourages activities such as visiting Holocaust museums or hearing survivor testimony. Take Action projects range from planting flowers in memory of victims to inviting a survivor or descendant to speak.
Loeb told JNS the center began working with Sassani in 2023. “We learned about Lily’s project in the summer of 2023 and connected with her that September when she asked if the Holocaust Center would serve as her mentor for her Gold Award project,” she said. “Since then, we’ve met every week to guide her as she developed both the curriculum and the patch.”
Because the project was created for Girl Scouts, Loeb said it was a “meaningful challenge” to create a curriculum that participants would “choose to learn about on their own time.”
The development process took nearly two years, followed by an additional 10 months for design and production. The center now houses and distributes the patches.
Since the announcement of the patch in January, interest in it has surged. Sassani said that “300 troops from across the world have inquired with interest to earn it, and right now we already have troops nearing completion.”
Loeb told JNS that she hopes the patch will leave a lasting impact on Girl Scouts. “I hope they learn how much power they have and how they can use their voices to make the world better,” she said. “This program is timeless, and its lessons are deeply relevant today.”
