Going for gold: how this girl scout made a change in her community 

Girl Scout Angie Espenscheid helped update the Boys Town Central Florida game room with new games and a vibrant mural, changing the environment for the kids who stay there.

With an idea in mind and donated paint, Espenscheid made a makeshift projector with her phone and shone a game controller outline on the Boys Town wall to map out a soon-to-be orange-colored mural. 

Six months ago, the game room at the Boys Town Intervention & Assessment Center had two old pieces of furniture with an entertainment center of broken and outdated games for the kids to play with.

Espenscheid said she had learned about Boys Town when helping a scout in her troop work on their award project there, installing a butterfly garden. 

“When I went to Boys Town I was like, ‘wow this is a really cool place,’” Espenscheid said.  “Some of the people at Boys Town, working there, expressed a need for a mural in their game room.” 

Boys Town Central Florida Development Coordinator Veronica Durant said it wasn’t as fun or inviting before, but now, staff tells her that the kids are using the room much more. “She really came through and made it a much more friendly area,” she said. 

More than just the appearance was changed though, through Espenscheid’s project. 

Davine Hardy, the I&A Center administrative assistant, said the game room is the biggest room you see when walking into the center, drawing everyone’s attention to it. When the room was not nicely done the youth would destroy it to where staff had to keep the doors closed, Hardy said. This was the case with other areas of the center as well. 

“However, now that the building has been renovated, every door is open because we want to broadcast it, and we want to see it, and the kids have been treating it very accordingly to where they don’t want to mess it up,” Hardy said. 

She said the updates to the campus, like the center’s renovation, were encouraged by Laurie Stern who stepped into the executive director position at Boys Town two years and seven months ago. Staff is currently updating every room in the center; the game room was just the start. 

Durant said the game room had “desperately” needed a paint job. The walls in the room, now painted a new coat of light blue, had graffiti from previous groups of kids who came through the center.  

“We are working really hard to make it a more family-friendly environment,” Durant said. 

Program Director Aleundro McCray has worked at Boys Town for 19 years now. He works closely with the youth and said he’s recently seen an improved behavior from the kids with the renovation.

“It’s been nothing like it used to be, and I think this helps,” McCray said. 

He thinks they get a better feeling about themselves now. “Because it looks better they tend to act better,” McCray said. He said they now have a good atmosphere and he is impressed with the outcome.

“You didn’t have that game room feel,” McCray said. “This looks like a game room.” 

About Boys Town

Durant said the Central Florida location is one of the nine sites of Boys Town National, which she said was founded, “to change the way America catered for its children and families.” Boys Town Central Florida aims to help youth in seven counties who are at risk to human trafficking and abuse. It has many different programs in place for prevention and recovery. 

Staff helps youth in need by providing them housing on campus, ensuring an education, and counseling families and kids dealing with mental health and behavioral issues. 

On the Boys Town campus there are five houses that fit up to six children per house. Each of these homes have a married couple living with the youth that looks after them. Every home is provided a van for a mode of transportation. 

The campuses’ I&A Center houses the most at risk, to abuse and neglect, and oftentimes transitional foster kids and community placements. Boys Town receives community placements when a parent or guardian calls and asks about placing their youth in the program. Staff then carries out interviews with the youth and temporarily houses them so that the families can have a period of relief.  

Every kid at Boys Town is under a contract outlining the time of their stay. The children at the I&A Center typically stay only two to four weeks. The center houses both boys and girls and is the only all-youth shelter in Seminole County, Durant said. 

“So, that’s what I&A is really for,” she said. “It’s to give the ones that don’t really have a stable home somewhere that they can stay for as long as we can keep them.” 

The center has been known as a “shelter” for kids. Hardy said staff has been working to move away from that word to make it known that it is more than that and is a program that works closely with the youth. She said to change that mindset involves changing the appearance as well, which is why Espenscheid was brought into the I&A Center. 

The gold standard

Angie Espenscheid will graduate soon from Hagerty High School and has been a part of Girl Scouts for 10 years. As a senior she decided she would put in the extra effort it takes to become a Gold Award Girl Scout. 

According to Girl Scouts of the USA, a scout can apply by notifying her local council that she is interested in working toward the award. She then will need to come up with a well-formed proposal plan for the council to approve it and then complete a project. 

GSUSA says this award can only be earned after a scout completes a minimum of 80 hours during the approved project and has to fill a community need. 

A scout has to be in high school to apply, and also be a registered Girl Scout Senior or Ambassador, or have earned a Girl Scout Silver Award along with other senior and ambassador journeys, GSUSA says. 

Espenscheid already earned her Silver Award pin in middle school and said she will receive her Gold Award pin this June, during a Gold Award ceremony, and place it above the silver on her beige scout vest. 

“Only 5.4% of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award,” GSUSA says. 

Espenscheid added on to that percentage when she completed her Gold Award project at Boys Town Central Florida, but not without road bumps along the way. 

Her first proposal to the local girl scout council was rejected. GSUSA’s deadline to earn a Gold Award for the 2024-25 year was also in March, and she first submitted the proposal in June. 

She decided to add three tic-tac-toe squares to the wall, along with her mural, so there would be an interactive element that the kids could enjoy. Espenscheid submitted this new plan in August and it was approved.

However, school collided often with Boys Town’s schedule once she got started, so the physical work on the project did not begin until February. After three Saturdays of Espenscheid and Durant working together the painting process was done. 

Espenscheid and her mom decided to create an Amazon wishlist of games to take the project a step further. The list was shared with multiple groups online, and community members began purchasing and donating to her effort. 

A Nintendo Switch and other Nintendo accessories, as well as board games and Minute to Win It games, were just recently donated in March, Espenscheid said. She would regularly come home to a package on her doorstep for a new donation. 

“The donations for the games happened overnight almost,” Durant said. 

Once the room was finished and all the games were collected, Boys Town had an intimate unveiling, in regard to youth privacy and protection, that Espenscheid’s family, the troop leader and peers, staff, children, and the Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek attended. 

Catherine said she is proud of Espenscheid for all of the time and work she put in. 

“It’s just fantastic that she can be part of this group of women that want to go above and beyond for their community, and I wish more girls had the opportunity to stay and complete projects like this,” Catherine said. “Girl Scouts is a wonderful organization.” 

The project was more work than Espenscheid originally thought it was going to be. “Especially all of the walls I ran into,” she said. “I mean there were really points I thought, ‘I’m not going to finish this, like at all,’ but I did.” 

Espenscheid said achieving something she didn’t think she could at times was rewarding, and she views her capabilities differently now.  

“I wanted to show the kids there that you can hit a wall, but you have to keep going,” she said. “I wanted to, at the very least, inspire them as well.”