What a Take Action Project should NOT look like!

"Pennsylvania's South Whitehall Patch reports that Meredith-Ann Beam, 18, has been awarded the Girl Scout Gold Award.  Beam's project included crocheting five baby blankets, knitting another five baby blankets, making 40 regular-sized blankets and making 70 bears for children at various local organizations.


“I taught the younger scouts how to knit and crochet the baby blankets and teddy bears for children to cuddle with," she said. "They were given to Bayada Pediatrics, Catholic Charities, Turning Point, Sacred Heart Hospital and Lehigh Valley Hospital.”  from the GSUSA blog 6-1-12

Did this project meet the current Gold Award Project requirements?  In a word, NO!  This was a nice service project.  Kudos that it involved teaching younger girls, and that it was a great output of product that was donated to the local hospitals.  But did it make a lasting change?  NO!  How was this sustainable?  

These are the questions we ask the girls when we talk with them about their projects.  What is the issue?  A need for blankets is NOT an issue, it's the result of something else.  Lack of funding?  Lack of an organized group to collect and make blankets? Or what?  

What could have made this a Gold Award standard project?  

Identifying the need.  

Discovering the root cause.

Connecting to the need and issue and developing a plan that attacks them!  Finding a Project Advisor.

Taking Action by putting together a project plan, gathering a team, educating others and working the plan.

Making a sustainable difference in the community.

Could the collection piece be included?  ABSOLUTELY!  But it can't be the whole project!  It should  be a small piece of the overall project. As one of our Gold girls said, "people like to give around Christmas, so I have a collection piece as part of my overall program, just for December."  She had a point!  Her club at school really connected with the students at school, by soliciting donations AS THEY GAVE OUT INFORMATION about the charity.  And the charity benefited from the service project.  

As we say in training, Girl Scouts has RAISED THE BAR on what a Gold Award Project looks like!  Here in Orange County, we are truly trying to hold the girls to the higher standard.

(On a separate note...my apologies for a lack of posts the end of the month!  I'll be getting back on track, starting today!  I think life just got in my way.  You know, visiting relatives, work, Mom, other GS events.... Speaking of, hope to see you all at the Adult Recognition Event on Sunday!  Bling it!)

 

Quality - Raising the Bar

“The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.“

            - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am a self-acknowledged fan of Dr. King, and I really like this quote as it may relate to the Gold and Silver Award Take Action Projects.  At Training, you've heard Karin, Lesley and me talk about how GSUSA is "raising the bar" on the standards for these two Awards.  Each award is supposed to be the hardest thing the girl will do at her level.

We advisors/project advisors/trainers need to help the girls look at the issue they want to address, and to critically think about what the need is in our community.  We need to help them identify a true need and create a plan to address that need.  This needs to be more than a collection project or something simple.  It needs to be bigger and more encompassing.

The quality of the work, the time the girl puts in and the leadership skills she uses and develops during the process are really critical here. This is a girl led process where the burden is directly on her shoulders!  We need to encourage her to find the Take Action Project that is meaningful, has quality and is within her scope to achieve.  It should  be difficult, and it should be a challenge!

For the Silver Award, this could be a single girl, or a small group of two or three girls who have come together around the same issue.  For the Gold, it's one girl alone.  You, her advisor, are there to support, cheerlead, provide resources and help her raise the bar and create a quality Take Action Project.  And NOT let her take the easy way out!

And when that bar is raised, good things happen: there is some longevity, but not necessarily something with a timeline attached to it!  Both the Gold and Silver Awards ask that the projects be sustainable.  There's no time attached to that, but it should certainly be beyond the immediate future.  At the Silver level, the girls also need to talk about and understand that global implications of their issue and their project.  At the Gold level, there might even be a way to provide for the project to global.  Or continue the talk about global implications, and talk about "what if" and other scenarios.

Dr. King believed that everyone has a voice, and that everyone can make a difference in the world. So do I. And so do your girls, I bet.