Site Map | Archives

Home › Living › Living Local

Albuquerque Girl Scout finds her voice, purpose through volunteering

By Carrie Seidman
Friday, February 22, 2008

related linksMore Living Local
related linksMOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

related linksTRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.
STORY TOOLS

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

The timid high school teenager, with blushing face and halting words, showed up in Katy Braziel's office two years ago, her father by her side for moral — and verbal — support.

Carley Frick, a Girl Scout since the age of 5, had an idea for her Gold Star project, the highest award one can achieve as a Senior Girl Scout. She was there to ask Braziel, the coordinator of volunteers for Albuquerque Public School's Title I Homeless Project, if she could create a books-on-audiotape project for the homeless children who come to the afterschool program for tutoring, meals and other services.

"When she first came in, her dad was with her and she was not what you would call assertive," Braziel recalled. "She didn't really even know what she was asking to do."

At the time, Braziel gently explained to Frick that while her idea of helping the children with their reading comprehension skills was commendable, she needed to spend a semester tutoring the children first, to understand their needs and the program's operation.

Frick, now 17, didn't balk at the requirement. She faithfully tutored for up to six hours a week, but also, as president of a Sandia High School community service group, organized fellow students to fill empty tutoring positions.

"She got hooked, and she lined up some of my most dependable volunteers," said Braziel.

And after a semester of literacy training and working with the children, Frick proceeded with her original intentions.

Carley's Reading Corner now offers more than 50 books on audiocassette, along with interactive follow-up activities Frick designed to increase the children's comprehension skills and aid with problem language areas.

The project was a factor in Frick being selected as one of New Mexico's top two youth volunteers for 2008 by the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide program honoring a high school student and a middle school student from each state for outstanding acts of volunteerism.

As an honoree, Frick will receive $1,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., in May, where she will be considered for selection as one of the top 10 youth volunteers in the nation.

Frick said she was grateful for the award, which her older sister, Lindsey, won two years ago, but even more pleased with what the experience did for her personally.

"I've come out of my shell," said Frick, an angelic-faced senior with a gap-toothed smile and reddish hair gathered into two perky top-knots. "I am more confident to talk to people and to take the initiative. Seeing a problem and doing something about it are two different things."

No more taking Dad along for requests or speaking with painful effort to adults. (She still does tend to blush though.) Scheduling her time — which over the past year has been packed with volunteering with organizations such as the Roadrunner Food Bank, the Storehouse and the Salvation Army — is now the more difficult challenge.

But you can still find Frick every Thursday afternoon in the portable classroom at Inez Elementary School that serves as home for the Title I program. On a shelf are the books, tape recorder and activity folders that Frick created and donated.

"When my mom and dad would read to me, it was more interesting than just staring at words on the page," she said.

That memory inspired her to make recordings for children who rarely have access to books outside of school. Frick spent more than 200 hours on the project and hit a few hurdles along the way — most significantly, the need for publishers' permission to make the recordings.

A bulging white vinyl folder documenting her Gold Star project is filled with several "Return to sender" envelopes from publishers no longer in existence.

But it also contains letters granting Frick permission to tape stories and commending her efforts — as well as comments from the kids. ("It was grate!" reads one, showing there is still some work to be done.)

Now, the minute she walks in the door, she is surrounded by her small fans, who say: "Oooooh, what did you bring today?"

Anything by authors Eric Carle or Tomie dePaola are her top recommendations for young children, though personally she's more drawn to science fiction and fantasy works, like those of her favorite author, Orson Scott Card.

Frick is clear about who has gained most from the project.

"This program definitely opened my eyes," she said. "I never knew there were families who lived in cars or in a house with five other families. It made me realize my life has been very easy."

It's also cemented the direction she wants to take after high school. After spending the coming summer as a counselor at a Girl Scout camp, she is "95 percent sure" she'll attend New Mexico Tech, majoring in environmental science and minoring in teaching. After that, she hopes to become a Peace Corps volunteer in South America.

"I am not a fan of paperwork," she said.

Recently, in the office of Sandia High counselor Patty Brown, Frick questioned how she could combine her love of the outdoors, her dedication to children and her fervent desire to avoid a desk job into a paying proposition.

"(Frick) said to me, 'What I really want to do, they just don't have a job like that,' " Brown recalled. "So I said to her, 'You know what, Carley? Create your own.' "

At this point, no one would be surprised if she does exactly that.