Community Corner

Girl Scouts Honor Local Residents

Kathy Trochek and Mary Van Valkenburgh receive awards at luncheon.

The Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta honored Kathy Trochek of Avondale Estates and Mary Van Valkenburgh of Decatur during the first-ever Changing the World Awards Luncheon at the Atlanta History Center.

Trochek is a best-selling novelist who writes under the name Mary Kay Andrews. She was one of six to win an Alumnae Achievement Award.

In an email to Patch, she said, β€œI was a Girl Scout -- from Brownies through Cadet, where I learned how to sell cookies to diabetic retirees who hated cookies, to make a stove out of an old tuna can and some rolled up cardboard and parafin, to short-sheet a bunk, and to be confident and unafraid of anything life could throw at me.”

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Van Valkenburgh and three others won Lifetime Achievement Awards. Van Valkenburgh served in numerous professional positions with Girl Scout USA.


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