Amanda Pevey
Elmore Autauga News
Isabella Fulmer, 18, a senior at Elmore County High School and an ambassador with Eclectic Troop 9192, is turning years of personal challenges into a project designed to help others thrive. As she works toward her Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouts of the USA, Fulmer is leading an initiative rooted in compassion, resilience, and a desire to give back.
Her project, Daisy’s Sanctuary, aims to support girls attending Kamp Kiwanis who experience anxiety, sensory sensitivities, or homesickness. Fulmer is creating a sensory garden path at the camp, designed to engage four of the senses and provide a calming, restorative environment. In addition, she is assembling sensory boxes that will be available at all camps and can be checked out through the council, offering tools to help girls reset and manage overwhelming moments.
“This path will be about 75 feet long and will help the girls reset and redirect their minds. It will have stepping stones with different textures, as well as plants with a variety of colors and smells,” Fulmer said. “The sensory boxes will include fidgets, coloring pages, puzzles, magnets, NeeDohs, stress balls, and other items to help them reset and refocus.”
Fulmer’s inspiration is deeply personal. She has struggled with anxiety throughout her life, stemming from traumatic choking and aspiration incidents during her first two years. At 26 months, she underwent throat surgery to correct the issue.
Her mother, Catherine Rutherford Fulmer, said the family turned to Girl Scouts when Isabella joined as a Daisy to help her cope with anxiety and shyness. Over the past 12 years, the program has played a transformative role in her life.
Now an experienced camper and camp counselor with a decade of camp participation behind her, Fulmer has witnessed firsthand the challenges many girls face. Through Daisy’s Sanctuary, she hopes to create a supportive space for anyone dealing with anxiety, sensory overstimulation, or the emotional strain of being away from home.
“I am super proud of my daughter,” her mother said. “Her entire life has been one obstacle after another with her anxiety, and now her Gold Award is focusing on helping others with their anxieties and sensitivities. I have been her voice for so many years because speaking to people is one of her triggers, even people she has known her whole life. We went to several businesses asking for donations for her project. Even anxious, she did most of the talking, and I had to stop myself a couple of times, but she did amazing.”
As Fulmer works to complete her Gold Award, her project stands as both a testament to her personal growth and a lasting resource for future campers, a place where challenges can be met with understanding, and where every girl has the chance to feel supported, calm, and confident.
If you’d like to support Isabella’s Gold Award project, donations are being accepted. She has created Amazon wish lists for items needed for a camp garden path and sensory boxes.
To contribute to the garden path, visit: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2LZ1V3542M4C?ref_=wl_share.
To donate items for sensory boxes, visit: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/G64D6MJ2G7C3?ref_=wl_share.
Monetary donations may also be sent via Cash App to $JLoftonGS. The account belongs to Troop 9192, led by Jacquelyn “Jackie” Lofton and Catherine Fulmer.
