PHILLIPSTON — Marissa Marques decided to take action when she realized her younger brother, who has Down syndrome, didn’t like to attend school dances because of the bright lights and loud sounds.
“It was overwhelming (for him) with all the lights and not everyone wanted to go off to the side with him and talk, they all wanted to dance,” she said.
Marques, who lives in Phillipston, has been involved with the Girl Scouts since she was a Brownie around the age of 7, and she was determined to use her skills she learned from the organization to help her brother. As a younger Girl Scout, Marques saw older girls receiving the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor a Girl Scout can receive, and started to brainstorm issues in her community she could focus a project on. Girl Scouts apply for the award by finishing a seven-step project that includes providing a solution to a problem in their community and taking action to resolve it.
Marques started to plan and research her options to host a sensory-friendly dance for the seventh-and eighth-graders at Narragansett Middle School.
“I decided to do this dance so all those kids who usually sit on the side could feel included — this dance was all for them,” she said.
Next came the hard part, said Marques. She spoke with her troop leader Jennie Chase about the idea, submitted her work to the Girl Scout Council and then was invited to Worcester to meet with them to detail what she wanted to do and how she was hoping to make an impact in her community. Once she had the green light from the organization, she reached out to the local school administration and saw an outpour of support from her community.
“It was a lot of getting out of my comfort zone and just talking to people and a lot of what we got was so unexpected,” said Marques.
Different residents volunteered their time to chaperone the dance held back in March, along with donations to make sure the dance would be up and running.
“The whole community was very supportive and I am grateful for that,” said Marques.
She said more students attended the dance than she originally expected and found everyone to be joining in the fun by the end. Students were able to play games and pick their own music, said Marques, including the ‘Power Rangers’ theme song.
“Mostly we focus on school being about grades — you go to school, you get your classwork and you go home — but I feel like in middle school, you are still trying to figure out who you are and part of who you are should be going out and having fun, so why not go to a dance where everyone feels included?” she said.
It wasn’t until two months after the dance that Marques found out she would be receiving the Gold Award at a local award ceremony. Once she read the letter in the mail, she said she became emotional.
“I started crying. I was so emotional because it became a reality. … I was so thankful that I applied to this and didn’t sit it out,” she said
According to the Girl Scouts’ website, the Gold Award is awarded to fewer than 6 percent of all Girl Scouts annually. Only open to high school girls, Special Events and Projects Manager of the Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts Tammy Breen said the girls do not win the award, but earn it through their hard work.
Marques said she has been speaking with Girl Scouts within her own community, as well as other girls in surrounding towns, about her project to implement a similar dance at their schools.
“I hope by me doing this it will sustain itself in our community, but others as well,” she said.
In the fall Marques said she will be attending Fitchburg State University for their early childhood education program and said being a Girl Scout has prepared her for this next step.