30 | MARCH 17 • 2022 

OUR COMMUNITY

F

or 11 years, 
Emma Beach 
has been a 
member of the 
Girl Scouts, a 
youth organi-
zation with more 
than 10 million mem-
bers worldwide.
The 14-year-old 
Rochester resident, 
like many other Girl 
Scouts, has made 
it a mission to help 
make the world a 
better place — a 
core building block 
of the Girl Scouts 
program. Yet for the 
teen, who is of Asian 
descent and grew up 
in a Catholic family, 
teaching the lessons 
of the Holocaust were 
of utmost importance, 
especially to other 
young people her age.
Last year on Zoom, 
Beach put together a 

presentation with the help 
of her mentor, Brenda 
Rosenberg, an author, for-
mer Girl Scouts member and 
expert in interfaith commu-
nication, to share the lessons 
of the Holocaust with 40 
other Girl Scout members. 
Beach’s project, which took 
60 hours to complete, won 
her a GS Silver Award, the 
highest award for her age 
group.
“I made a project about 
the Holocaust, what caused 
it and what we can learn 
from it,” Beach explains of 
her work, “so things like that 
don’t happen anymore.”
Presented to youth across 
the United States in grades 
4-12, “Stop Hate! Lessons to 
Learn from the Holocaust” 
was designed to teach partic-
ipants how to use knowledge 
of the Holocaust to help stop 
hate in our current society.
Activities included learn-
ing about how Jewish people 

14-year-old Girl Scout wins award 
for project on Holocaust.
Stop
Stop

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Emma 
Beach
Hate!

