Last Friday my troop met for the first time this year, as our first January meeting was cancelled due to a snow storm.
On the Monday before the meeting, I emailed my parents about the Bronze Award. After reading much about it online, I decided to make this an optional activity. Because many of my girls participate in sports, competitive dance, and a plethora of other activities, requiring them to have an additional 20 hours might not have worked for some families.
Using an idea from the Babycenter.com Girl Scout Moms forum, I drafted my own letter to the parents, explaining the Bronze Award and what it entailed. I only had one parent email me additional questions, and I was overjoyed to find out that all eleven of my girls are up for the task!
At our first meeting in the fall, we generated many ideas. After reviewing them, I decided to steer the girls in a certain direction. We talked about why the other two ideas they liked would not work-too time consuming on my end (I do everything as it is), location and time constraints (with so many extra activities, would the girls be able to do what they wanted on a date I had no control over).
Most of the girls love animals and have pets, so we will be assisting a local no-kill animal shelter.
This shelter is about 15 minutes away from us, and has a website full of ideas for donations and other projects for the girls to do. After sharing the lists with the girls, they came up with these ideas:
Make posters in school for collections
Meet with the Guidance Counselor/Principal for assistance
Use Student Council as a Resource (several of my girls are on this)
Decorate boxes for the collections
Do a neighborhood collection, like our canned food drive
Make toys and blankets for the animals
Help at the shelter (on parent hours, not Girl Scout time)
This list is perfect, because it gives the girls so many different options. Two of my fifth graders are at a different school, so they can work as a team or individually, and work with us at meetings.
I did offer to take the girls for some additional time if we need it, but my own daughter has already logged in several hours making toys because she is so excited to do this! Completion date is set for March 31st, as we will take a field trip to the shelter on April 4th to deliver the goods.
This morning I emailed the parents what we were doing, the link to our Council’s website with all of the Bronze Award information, and a list of links for the girls to make toys.
I will keep you all updated at our progress!
