In 1999 at the age of 5, Kate Linkchorst joined Girl Scout Troop 286 as a Daisy, the youngest division of Girl Scouts. She spent the next 15 years making crafts, helping other Scouts, accumulating badges and working her way up the Girl Scout ladder. She bridged to junior level with her troop, 286, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

For the troop’s Bronze Award, the girls handcrafted a quilt for Project Linus, a charity that gives blankets to critically ill children. For their Silver Award, the girls donated time and food to the Salvation Army’s food bank.      The highest Girl Scout award, the Gold Award, asks the Scout to organize a sustainable project to benefit the community. Linkchorst and her father had spent many nights in the backyard looking up at the stars, so she decided to hold two star gazing events for the community. The star nights included star myths, speakers from the aerospace industry and an enormously popular and enormously messy “make your own crater” experiment that involved flour and marbles. The star nights also featured several telescopes so that the attendees could get close-up views of the Moon.

Linkchorst formally received her Girl Scout Gold Award on June 9 along with 297 other young women, a record year for Los Angeles.