Silver Award Project - not up to snuff

"This Halloween, 3 Pennsylvania Girl Scouts earned their Girl Scout Silver Award for providing Halloween costumes and an elaborate party for children at the Marion Terrace housing project. . "We wanted every kid to experience the thrill of Halloween," said Gushka.  Dressing up is a big part of what makes Halloween the girls' favorite holiday. But they realized not everyone can afford costumes.

The project impressed Beth Gagliardi, director of the Boys and Girls Club of Marion Terrace. It was unusual in two ways, she said. It was the first time volunteers brought a Halloween event to her club and the first time she saw kids do so much to help other kids. "I asked if they wanted help, but they wanted to be in full charge of it," Gagliardi said. That kind of leadership is key to the Silver Award, which requires that the girls be in charge of the project and work for a minimum of 50 hours.

The girls gathered donations of costumes in good condition, coming up with around 50 by passing out flyers, appealing to other Scouts and putting the word out on Facebook. Some people donated new costumes."  (excerpted from GSUSA blog)

Truly this was a collection project:  a very nice service project that benefited some people in the short term.  And not likely that each girl spent 50 hours EACH on the whole process.

Perhaps they were using the old Go For It Silver Award requirements? But even then, this would have been a very Silver Award-lite type project.  Regardless, it is not good enough for the Journey Silver Award requirements.

What would have made it better?  The girls should have started by identifying the issue:  why didn't the kids at the Boys and Girls Club have Halloween costumes? or go trick or treating?  Is it a cultural thing? Safety issue?  Lack of skills on how to sew?  Lack of understanding? What is the identifiable root cause?  Lack of a Halloween party is not a root cause!  It's the result of something else.

And once that issue and root cause were identified, then the girls could have worked to address those concerns.  Maybe a Halloween party would have been a way to celebrate the completion of their project, if it was the right time of year?  

Collecting costumes makes only a short time benefit.  It's a one-off.  The Silver Award Project seeks to go for sustainable change.  And that doesn't mean having a yearly party!

Challenge your girls to look for issues and root causes!  They've had great progress with service projects as a younger Scout, but now is the time to ramp it up and let them discover how they can make a bigger difference in the lives of those they seek to help.