Girl Scouts Arizona Cactus-Pine Council is proud to announce that Fountain Hills resident Heather Garrett will receive the Gold Award, the highest honor a Girl Scout can receive.

This prestigious award requires a girl to stretch her skills and step forward as a leader to meet a local or global need, and to create sustainable change.

In the process, she develops and enhances her own leadership, determination, creativity and confidence. For many of these girls, this award is the culmination of more than 10 years in the Girl Scouts, and countless hours of dedication to their community.

Garrett will be honored at the 2014 Girl Scout Gold Award Celebration on Saturday, March 29 at the Glendale Civic Center.

Garrett’s Gold Award addresses the everyday issue of stress. To counteract the hectic pace of life, she created a prayer garden where the community could go to allow the beauty of nature to inspire and enrich their lives during prayer or meditation.

During her project, Garrett came up against a major obstacle when the church where she originally planned to build the garden went bankrupt. But this challenge didn’t stop her. Garrett used her Girl Scout ingenuity to find a new location.

She took special care to select Arizona-appropriate trees and flowers for the garden and built an irrigation system and a retaining wall.

Located at Fountain Hills Presbyterian Church, the garden is free and open to church members and the community.

Garrett is currently a freshman in the Scottsdale Community College culinary program and plans to attend Northern Arizona University to pursue a hospitality degree.