Young Women of Vision Leadership Breakfast

What do you get when you throw a bunch of successful women in a room together to talk about how they achieved their goals? Inspiration to last a lifetime. We are thrilled to share with you that our inaugural Young Women of Vision Leadership Breakfast was a success! We all learned so much from our wonderful panelists, and we shared a truly inspiring morning with our sister Girl Scouts.

Tami Erwin, a Senior Vice President & Group President of Verizon's Consumer and Mass Business Markets, lead the discussion, which featured:

• Sarah Dedinsky, a 2016 Gold Award recipient who collected over 900 new and gently used books for students of Jerome Dunn Academy in Elizabeth, NJ. She currently works to sponsor programs that will bring hunger awareness to her campus at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

• Naima Ricks, a Director of Student Engagement at the College of Saint Elizabeth who started Girl Scouts as a Daisy and remained a Girl Scout until she graduated high school. She continues to demonstrate her commitment to Girl Scouting as the Service Unit Manager for GSHNJ.

• Katie Meyler, 2014 TIME Person of the Year and Founder of More Than Me, an organization that provides the first tuition-free, all-girls school in Liberia.  She won $1MM from the Chase Bank American Giving Awards, cut the ribbon of the More Than Me Academy in Liberia alongside Nobel Laureate and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and received a standing ovation at Forbes 400.

• Julie McEldoon, a 2015 Gold Award recipient who helped build a polymerase chain reaction machine, which amplifies DNA. The machine teaches students about DNA analysis through hands-on experiments. She is currently studying Electrical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology and has created a scholarship for girls at her form high school to encourage them to pursue STEM.

• Kyla Bates, a 2016 Gold Award recipient who coordinated the donation of 500 teddy bears and Kare packages to children with rare blood diseases at Newark Beth Israel Hospital. Each Kare Package included a personalized message for the child, reminding them that someone is thinking about them.

• Lauren Ruderman, an Emmy-winning NBC Producer and 2002 Gold Award Recipient, who currently works for NBC Sports as an Assistant Director for live events. For Lauren's Gold Award, she ran a political advocacy campaign and prepared a multi-week curriculum on political awareness.

• Laura Lin, a 2015 Gold Award recipient who worked to create a handicapped-accessible garden at a convent. It gives the sisters have the opportunity to use the garden and to grow their own food and herbs. She currently attends St. Michael's College in Vermont, studying International Relations with minors in Spanish and Economics.