From staff reports
A local Girl Scout is providing help to Cranberry Township emergency services through her Girl Scout Gold Award project on the Allegheny Valley Trail.
Cranberry Area High School senior Jordan Anderson, a member of Girl Scout Troop 26499 of Fertigs, has developed and installed a “locator” sign system along the trail between Franklin and Emlenton, to help people making emergency calls from the trail identify their exact location for 911 dispatchers and emergency responders.
Coming from a family with a background in the fire service and emergency management, when planning her Gold Award project, Anderson asked Venango County public safety officials how she could help with emergency response. It was suggested Anderson do something that would aid in dispatching fire, ambulance and police personnel to the Allegheny Valley Trail between Franklin and Emlenton.
Anderson discussed the issue with the Allegheny Valley Trails Association, and it was decided that 13 locator signs should be installed along the trail.
Anderson designed the signs and selected colors to match those signs already in place on the trail, and solicited the donation of materials from 84 Lumber in Seneca. With the help of some friends, she cut the sign posts and signs to size.
Two Mile Run County Park donated the routing work to place the location names on the signs, and scouts from Anderson’s troop and classmates from Cranberry Area High School helped paint the signs and posts brown and the lettering yellow.
The final phase of the project was to develop an “Emergency Sign Locator” book for Anderson to distribute to Venango County 911, fire departments, Community Ambulance Service and Pennsylvania State Police.
When emergency callers along the trail are near a locator sign, the 911 dispatchers can then look up the sign in the book and provide accurate dispatch information to the appropriate emergency services.
The book includes a short overview of the project, a map of the Allegheny Valley Trail indicating the location of each sign, and an individual page for each sign containing its GPS coordinates, directions to reach it from the intersection of Route 322 and Cranberry-Rockland Road, and an aerial and a close-up picture of the sign.
Anderson will submit a final report of her project to the Girl Scouts of Western Pennsylvania for their review and evaluation for the Gold Award, Girl Scouting’s highest award for high-school-age (or Ambassador) Girl Scouts.
The review will determine if her project demonstrates extraordinary leadership through a sustainable and measurable take-action project that addresses an important community need.
Anderson hopes everyone will look for the locator signs when walking, biking, skiing, or just enjoying the trail.
