When the Hopkinton Town Library reached out to Girl Scout Kiley Ehrmanntraut in need of more outdoor seating and activity space, she jumped into action, building four tables and placing them at the library, the town gazebo, and the Kimball Lake historic cabins. Through this work, she has earned the highest honor available to Girl Scout in high school, the Girl Scout Gold Award.

Ehrmanntraut, 18, of Hopkinton, didn’t stop at merely building tables. She designed them with extra-long table tops to allow wheelchair users to use the tables, and painted each one with a different design – a U.S. map; an America flag; chess, checker, and backgammon game boards; and American Sign Language symbols. Ehrmanntraut said she wants to go into a profession helping children, and choosing the ASL was a natural fit for her project.

She worked with family friend Pete Ohl, who lent his expertise as a woodworker and made sure she did the work herself and knew how to handle power tools safely.

“Kiley deserves a lot of praise for tackling a challenging project as she had little to no prior woodworking experience,” said Ohl. “She set out to build and completed four tables with benches.  However, she achieved much more as she put in significantly more time and effort than I believe she originally anticipated. Kiley put forth a lot of planning, focus and hard work and should certainly be proud of what she accomplished. She was always attentive and eager to learn the new skills. And she often thought of who she was building the tables for as can be seen by the artistry and collaborative games she decorated the tables with, as well as the handicap-accessibility design.

Ohl said her thoughtful project will provide a great gathering place for families and friends in town and resulted in well-built outdoor furniture that should last for many, many years.

Ehrmanntraut put in over 110 hours on her project, which also included a tutorial for others to build similar tables. She spent over $1,400, most of which came from her Girl Scout Cookie sales over the years.

“I definitely think (the cookie program) taught me a lot,” she said. “And it also taught me to keep working even when you don’t want to, because it was so cold when we would sell cookies!”

Over her 13 years in Girl Scouts, Ehrmanntraut has enjoyed camping and troop outings, and made some lifelong friends. She was active at Hopkinton High School, where she was in “a ton of clubs,” including Peer to Peer; was a member of the student council; and captain of her soccer team for two years.

Ehrmantraut is now a freshman at Bay Path University in Massachusetts, where she is going for a degree in special education or occupational therapy.

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