Gold Award Project defined

From the GSUSA Blog: “Jacqueline is recycling wheelchairs, walkers, canes and crutches which will be donated to United Cerebral Palsy Association of Nassau County, St. Anne’s Church and Met Council of The Bronx. Her goal is to help alleviate the burden of purchasing these items for people in need. She was inspired by her mother who was forced to use a walker when she broke her ankle. Jacqueline was 11 at the time and wondered how people who didn’t have insurance could have access to this equipment.”

From reading that paragraph, I’d say it was a very nice collection/service project, but hardly a Gold Award Project!  But as we all know, a newspaper doesn’t necessarily get all the details into its article, so I have to hope that Jacqueline really DID have a fully thought out Gold Award Project.

Watching her Mom use a walker definitely made an impression on Jacqueline.  But what root issue did just collecting wheel chairs address?  I’m hoping that her advisor challenged her to investigate the current health care system to figure out what agencies exist to provide those items to those in need. Using the community mapping tool would have given her great insight into her own community.  And wouldn’t it have been great if she identified part of her issue as helping the underserved by connecting them to agencies.  Or created an outreach with UCP or other agencies to get the word out into the community that this resource is available.

And how could she have used her leadership, beyond asking for donations?  How could she educate others?  Create a sustainable plan to ensure that donations would keep coming in?  Beyond helping the few people with her donations, how could she make a lasting difference in her community?  What would challenge her to think bigger and better?  To go beyond her comfort zone, and engage more with others in a leadership capacity?

I hope that her advisor/troop leader asked these questions, and really made Jacqueline think about what she was doing.  I truly hope that the Gold Award Committee who interviewed her and approved her Gold Award Project made sure that these pieces were included in her proposal.

And I hope Jacqueline celebrated the completion of her very successful project!