Archita Khandelwal on working toward a Gold Award
Staff Writer
Before a Girl Scout graduates the 12th grade, she tries to complete her Gold Award project—a community initiative she pursues in order to demonstrate leadership and better her community. Archita Khandelwal (10) has begun the process of obtaining her Gold Award with a proposed thrift-flip initiative as she navigates the place creating art has in her life.
Khandelwal’s troop leader and parent of another Girl Scout, Aparna Byerragudi, shared, “The Girl Scout Gold Award is almost like a Girl Scout’s entering adulthood, and it’s really all for the girls.” In order to qualify for the Gold Award, a Girl Scout must have completed the Bronze Award—which is achieved with the troop—and the Silver Award, an award earned with a small group of girls, before she embarks on creating her individual gold projects. Byerragudi added, “Because of everything they’ve worked for before, it really is a personal project based on what’s impacting them.”
In choosing a project, a Girl Scout must determine what she finds most meaningful, and she must be passionate and thorough in order to create lasting impact. Troop member Vachi Kalra (10), said, “It’s a significant commitment of 100 hours of work, and for me, a passion project first. It needs to be sustainable, help the community, and I want to make sure I’m making a lasting change.”
Khandelwal’s project focuses on the issue of fast fashion, a global phenomenon which is responsible for over tens of billions of tons of fabric waste each year. Its model of mass producing clothing at low prices meets consumer demand though exploiting the laborers working on the pieces while also producing lower quality goods. Khandelwal’s partner on this project, Kavya Narayanan (10), said, “Our goal really is to create a more sustainable environment locally, and then try and expand it from there. Thrift stores often contribute a lot to fabric waste just because not everything goes, and we wanted to address that issue in particular by upcycling material.”
Khandelwal added, “For me, it’s also the creative aspect of it. What’s the best, nicest, prettiest thing you can do with the fabric? It’s a very artistic process of physically trying to transform the thing.”
Khandelwal has just begun her project, creating a website and reaching out to advisors for guidance (Photo Credit: Saanvi Deshini (10)).
She had been interested in sewing for a while, thrifting whenever she could, but more pertinently, she has always strived to learn, and then master, new kinds of crafts as though they are puzzles to complete. She was drawn to upcycling in particular having already developed an interest in fashion.
For Khandelwal, the process of obtaining the Gold Award is a demonstration of how she plans to incorporate art into her life without feeling like she has sacrificed a more financially-lucrative career. She said, “I’m really focused on maintaining my creativity, and I know I can’t pursue art because it doesn’t feel sustainable. I don’t know—I just want to have a career that lets me stay creative, have it be very problem-solving based, like engineering. That’s how I interact with my art right now. It’s why I tried to do both here: keep art a passion or a hobby, but keep that mindset.”
Khandelwal has fallen in love with art time and again, beginning with canvas, then claywork, and most recently sewing. Her mother shared, “She’s a born artist, and the passion just got deeper and deeper. Over the last few years, she’s found it to be a stress reliever, and sometimes, she’d just randomly have made a clay jewelry holder or new painting. She’s always loved it, and she continues to love it.”
Her father added, “She’s also never seemed overwhelmed by it, like when she was creating, she was in her zone.”
Beyond that, Khandelwal is known by her peers for her love of artistry and the passion with which she pursues it. Her childhood best friend, Harshi Pannala (10), explained, “She loves to showcase her art, and she’s really in her element there. It’s been the biggest part of her life even before I met her, and I know she just loves being on canvas or with clay or trying something new.”
Khandelwal sees art as consuming, meticulous, and expressive, and she studies it with precision. Her passion and perfectionism bleed into her academic and extracurricular life. A close friend of hers, Arnav Rastogi (10) said, “She just puts so much effort into whatever she does. It’s in everything, really. I remember even for Model UN, she’d guide me through what I needed to do, working insanely hard to set deadlines and get things done early because she was that passionate. Even when plans fall through, she’s always innovating.”
Khandelwal has just begun her project, creating a website and reaching out to advisors for guidance. She shared, “I’ve started working on social media posts, and I emailed community college professors for guidance, then teachers for clothing drives. I’m researching, and I really want to spread awareness about my cause too—really do it the best way.”
Khandelwal said, “What’s the best, nicest, prettiest thing you can do with the fabric? It’s a very artistic process of physically trying to transform the thing” (Photo Credit: Archita Khandelwal (10)).
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