Faye Charpentier and Courtney Buchanan of Wrentham and Caitlyn Doucette of Plainville have earned the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award. The award is the highest honor a Girl Scout can achieve.

Doucette is the first Plainville resident to earn the award in the 25 years local Girl Scouts have been keeping records, and Charpentier and Buchanan are only the third and fourth girls from Wrentham to have achieved the honor.

Members of Girl Scout Senior/Ambassador Troop 4348, Charpentier, Buchanan, and Doucette began working toward the award in October 2006. To earn it, girls must complete numerous prerequisites, including leadership hours, community service, career exploration, the Girl Scout 4-B Challenge and interest project patches.

They are also required to plan and implement a major project that demonstrates commitment to self, community and to the future. The project must be a minimum of 65 hours.

Charpentier saw a need in the community to encourage teens to continue reading for pleasure and expansion of the mind. She started multiple book clubs for young adults in the community and also collected children's book for local literacy centers. Buchanan developed a project to further animal enrichment at Franklin Park Zoo in Boston. She worked alongside zoo keepers to design, plan, and implement improvements in the lives of zoo animals.

Doucette gave several presentations to elementary school children on how to be eco-friendly and complied environmental awareness resource books, which she donated to local libraries and schools.

She also collected hundreds of sneakers for the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe Program.

The awards will be presented Aug. 2 at the Wrentham Senior Center, 400 Taunton St.