Girl Scout Awards
Ashley Elise Papacena of Plainsboro, a member of Senior Girl Scout Troop 31, has been named a 2005 Girl Scout of Distinction. She will be mentored by Shirley M. Ward, the director of community and urban affairs and Public Service Electric and Gas Company.
Each year the Senior Girls Scouts mentor with the Women of Distinction to demonstrate how women build careers, raise families, and still find the time to involve themselves in the community. “The mentoring aspect shows girls that successful women are everywhere and that through hard work, they can achieve any goal they set for themselves,” says Michele Tuck-Ponder, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Delaware-Raritan council.
Papacena was nominated by Bonnie Rumph, her former leader, the former service unit director of West Windsor and Plainsboro unit, and now working as training and membership manager at the Girl Scouts’ council office in East Brunswick. A Girl Scout for six years, Papacena’s current leader is Debbie Ribardo. She earned her Silver Award by serving on a Girl Scout recruitment committee at Plainsboro’s Founder’s Day.
A junior at High School South, Papacena attended school at Wicoff, Dutch Neck, Upper Elementary, and Grover Middle schools. Her mother, Millie Figueroa, works at PNC Bank in East Brunswick. Her father, James Papacena, lives in Yonkers, New York. Her stepfather, Ibrahim Aziz, is a chaplain at Fort Dix.
Papacena, an active student, is a member of the anti-smoking group, REBEL (Reaching Everyone By Exposing Lies), Junior Statesmen of America, African American Club, and ASSET. She is on the varsity soccer team as well as the teen league softball team. Active in the youth group at St. David the King Church, she is vice president of the youth group. In ninth grade, her peers nominated her the class clown.
Her elective courses include child care and human behavior. She sees her future in teaching or human resources and hopes to go to Rowan College. “Life is full of obstacles, but I know where my limits are,” she says.
Linda Greenstein of Plainsboro is a 2005 Girl Scout Woman of Distinction. She will mentor Jessica Hedden, a senior Girl Scout from Lawrence. A member of the New Jersey State Assembly, she was appointed as assistant majority leader last year. The author of New Jersey’s anti-telemarketing law, she called for a state constitutional convention for property tax reform.
A graduate of Vassar College, Johns Hopkins University, and Georgetown University Law School, Greenstein was a senior staff attorney at the Community Health Law Project and supervised the Public Interest Legal Clinic at Montclair State University. She has served as a deputy attorney general in Trenton and an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia.
From 1995 to 2000, Greenstein served as a member of the Plainsboro Township Committee. She has also served on the West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education and vice present of the Mercer County School Boards Association.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, she has lived in Plainsboro for 18 years. She is married to Michael Greenstein, an engineer and professor at Polytechnic University in New York City. Their son, Evan, an Eagle Scout, graduated from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School in 1995, recently graduated from Rutgers Law School, and was just sworn in as a new lawyer.
Greenstein was not a Girl Scout in her youth but is an adult member of the organization now. “I see myself helping Jessica in the world of public service by talking to her about what I do and related issues to peak her interest,” she says. “I also plan to help her network and meet people and assist her in pursuing her own interests.”
The 14th annual Women of Distinction Awards dinner will be held at the Hyatt Regency, New Brunswick, on Tuesday, March 22. For reservations or information call 732-821-9090, ext. 112.
