Daily Pilot: Corona del Mar Girl Scout Wins Scholarship for Nonprofit, Book Highlighting Cambodian Art and Culture
August 09, 2023
NEWS RELEASE
Orange County Girl Scout Katelyn Saiki Earns $10,000 National GSUSA Scholarship For Project Honoring Her Cambodian Heritage
IRVINE, CA (July 20, 2023) – Corona Del Mar resident and Gold Award Girl Scout Katelyn Saiki is a recipient of the Girl Scouts of the USA’s 2023 $10,000 Gold Award Scholarship.
Saiki is a descendant of survivors of the Cambodian genocide. To honor her heritage, the 18-year-old Girl Scout spearheaded a project aimed at preserving and celebrating Cambodian culture. Her hard work and efforts have had a global impact reaching nearly 1,200 students in Orange County and in rural Cambodia.
Saiki established a nonprofit, Cambodian Revival of Arts, Folklore, and Traditions (CRAFT), which combines her interests in art with the Cambodian diaspora. She launched an educational website, www.craftcambodia.com, an online resource sharing information about Cambodian history, art, and folklore. She authored and illustrated a children’s book, Khmerical: A Collection of Cambodian Folktales– centering around Cambodia’s culture and history, passing down “authentic Khmer stories” to the next generation, and inciting a love of art and learning for Cambodian students. In addition to hosting live story times here in Orange County, Saiki distributed her children’s book to organizations and libraries across California and Cambodia “to preserve and revive traditional stories.” She even organized a school supply drive and distributed those items to underserved Cambodian students along with her books.
From 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge, a communist political group, was responsible for the deaths of nearly a quarter of Cambodians. Saiki’s grandparents and mother, who was two years old at the time, managed to flee Cambodia and eventually made their way to the United States. Saiki was born in the United States, but a family trip to Cambodia a few years ago ignited the impassioned storyteller and artist to take action.
Gold Award Girl Scout Katelyn Saiki said, “I was inspired by my grandfather. I went to the village where my family lived before the war, and I immersed myself in the community and its stories, but I found that aspects of Cambodian culture, specifically the folklore I grew up with, were becoming lost due to the genocide and lack of documentation. This project is to help preserve a piece of my beautiful heritage.”
Dr. Vikki Shepp, Girl Scouts of Orange County’s CEO, said, “Girl Scouts of Orange County is incredibly proud of Katelyn. The mission of Girl Scouts is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place, and Katelyn exemplifies that. Her Gold Award project has impact and sustainability. It stretches 8,000 miles to Cambodia. It builds community, and shows Girl Scouts have the power to change the world.”
Nationally, Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) is recognizing 110 members of the 2023 Gold Award Girl Scout class who identified issues in their communities, took action, and found or created solutions to earn their Gold Awards. GSUSA reviews and approves one Gold Award Girl Scout per council to receive a $10,000 scholarship. Saiki was one of three Orange County finalists up for the award. Overall, this year’s class of national world-changers raised $2.5 million in funding and invested over 300,000 hours to address a wide variety of real-life problems, such as environmental sustainability, racial justice, mental and physical wellness, and gender inequality in STEM.
Saiki recently graduated from St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano, CA, and is now headed to the University of Southern California, where she plans to double major in Business Administration and Narrative Studies. Saiki will continue her Gold Award project by expanding the outreach, maintaining the website, and possibly writing another children’s book featuring Cambodian folklore.
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About Girl Scouts of Orange County
We are 25,000 strong – nearly 15,000 girls and 10,000 volunteers and adult members who bring girls’ dreams to life and work together to build a better world. Through programs reaching girls in every zip code in Orange County, Girl Scouts of all backgrounds and abilities can be unapologetically themselves as they discover their strengths and rise to meet new challenges—whether they climb to the top of a tree or the top of their class, lace up their boots for a hike or advocate for climate justice, or make their first best friends. Backed by trusted adult volunteers, mentors, and thousands of alums, Girl Scouts lead the way as they find their voices and take action to affect the issues most important to them. To join, volunteer, or support Girl Scouts of Orange County, visit www.girlscoutsoc.org.
