Jacquelyn Hendricks, daughter of David and Cheryl Hendricks of Suffolk, has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor and achievement a girl can earn in Girl Scouting.

Jacquelyn has been a Girl Scout for 10 years. She is currently a sophomore at Nansemond River High School.

For her project, Jacquelyn hosted classes that taught etiquette lessons to children in the Suffolk Parks and Recreation summer programs at both Creekside Elementary and Northern Shores Elementary.

In addition to these classes, she created YouTube videos with her curriculum so people could access the class materials remotely.

Jacquelyn noticed how due to the influence of today’s media, manners that were once commonplace in society haven’t been used as much recently. She then researched different etiquette classes and created her curriculum to show the children basic etiquette rules that will help them throughout life.

“I chose this project, because I wanted to educate our youth about proper manners,” Jacquelyn said. “Not knowing everyone’s background or influences, I wanted to teach basic manners that can be utilized anywhere.”

The Gold Award requires girls to identify an issue in the community and carry out a Take Action project to address the matter through leadership work.

Nationwide, less than 6 percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award, which adds Jacquelyn to an elite group of female leaders across the country with the honor.

In 2016, Girl Scouts are celebrating 100 years of girls changing the world during the centennial year of the Girl Scout Gold Award.