My name is Mary McCormack and I am currently a junior at Tappan Zee High School in Orangeburg New York. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in April of 2018 when I was about nine years old. The transition was hard for me at first, but luckily my mom is also a type 1 so she has experience with the disease and was able to be there to help transition into this new lifestyle. I think one of the hardest aspects for me was attempting to explain what diabetes is and how my friends and family would be able to best support me, especially when I was first diagnosed. I was so scared that my friends and family wouldn’t know what to do in case something happened to me, and I was also sometimes embarrassed to tell new people about being type 1 seeing as I thought they might judge me. When I was brainstorming ideas for my Girl Scout Gold Award this was something that I remembered nearly five years later. I decided that I wanted to create a user-friendly guide that would be easy for friends and families to understand newly diagnosed type 1’s. This was something that I wished that I had when I was diagnosed. I worked hard with my project advisor to create a kid-friendly and easy-to-understand pamphlet labeled “How to be a ‘Dia-bestie'”. This pamphlet includes easy-to-understand instructions on how to be able to support your type 1 besties. One of the key aspects of my project was going to Breakthrough T1D One Walks in my area to present this pamphlet to newly diagnosed families. I created an activity at each walk where the kids could make bracelets with the word “dia-bestie” in the design. Many type 1 kids had all their friends and family make the bracelets in solidarity. It was an amazing experience and way for kids to connect. At the walks I was able to connect and craft with many kids and families. I gave my pamphlet out to newly diagnosed families in the hope that it would be a valuable resource to them. My overall hope for my project would be to help newly diagnosed families transition easier into the overwhelming and sometimes scary world of being a type 1 diabetic.