Some people play soccer for a few years. Others play piano or dance or go through a phase where they fall in love with My Little Pony for the time being. Lots of people find something they’re passionate about, but it doesn’t last forever. However, Schmidt-Rundell’s passion of being a Girl Scout is truly an exception.
Schmidt-Rundell has been part of Girl Scouts since kindergarten, and has been working towards the highest achievement a Girl Scout can earn — the Gold Award. “I have been in Girl Scouts since kindergarten,” she recalls. “I’ve done my Silver and Bronze Awards, and I’m working on my Gold Award, which is basically the Eagle Scout for Boy Scouts.”
Kaitlyn Scmidt-Rundell ’23, Heidi’s younger sister, is a Senior Girl Scout. Also being very involved in Girl Scouts, Kaitlyn said that her experience in Girl Scouts isn’t much different from Heidi’s. She loves Girl Scouts, and both she and Heidi are working hard to earn the highest award. “She is working really hard to get her Gold Award. I just finished my Silver Award and I will hopefully be starting my Gold Award soon,” Kaitlyn said. It’s clear that the sisters love the Girl Scouts and commit a lot of time and hard work to continue doing what they love to do.
Heidi has been attending Girl Scout summer camps for 10 years, and often reminisces her days at summer camps, along with what she learned there and the friends she made. “Just the environment we have there is really cool. We get to do all these cool things. I love it,” Heidi said. For years, she worked with horses at camp, and then she decided to try something new: tackling the high ropes, and her fear of heights along with it. “I realized I like high ropes. I’ve never done that before. I was the last one to get off the ropes, because I loved it so much. [They told me I can zip line down] and I was like ‘Oh man, I don’t want to.’”

As Heidi discovered her surprising love for new things, she never forgot the other new things she hoped to experience. “I’ve always wanted to be a camp counselor. I was going to be a counselor in training last summer, but sadly, the dates didn’t work for me,” she said. Kaitlyn believes that her sister really has the potential do be great at what she wants to do. “She has learned how to lead and learned how to be a counselor which is so great, because she would be a great [counselor] on day,” Kaitlyn said. “Heidi loves Girl Scouts because it means helping younger kids, which [she] and I both like to do.” Kaitlyn and Heidi enjoy assisting anyone they can, and they often even make new friends along the way.
Making friends isn’t always easy. In fact, for tons of people it isn’t easy. But Heidi knows firsthand that it’s all worth it to put yourself out there. “I loved to ride horses, I loved the counselors, I loved the activities, but I seemed to be that one kid no one was friends with.” As she grew bolder, Heidi flipped all that upside down. “I did SPARK, a leadership camp, and our group was so close. I miss them all so much.”

As many of us can attest to, having a class with at least some of our friends is better than knowing no one in the class, and it makes it much more enjoyable to learn. “That not only taught me leadership, but how to plan for things or make a change for something I thought could be better,” she said. “Throughout the years I also learned how to take care of horses, outdoor skills, people skills in general, leadership skills, how to compromise, etc.”
At the end of camp, there are always displays of emotion, showing just how close friends can be. “During the final night there, we have a ceremony. Everyone walks down in the line, like this humongous buddy line. The whole camp walks down to this area and you sit and you sing songs, you write your camp wishes for next year.” Heidi remembers her wish being to have as great of a group of people as she did that year. “It’s always so emotional. It was always an emotional thing because we don’t get to see each other [often], and you build these great friendships at camp… I love camp, every aspect of it.”