Service Project into Silver

"The second graders planted close to 200 plants for a rain garden.

Armed with shovels, flowers and a lot of passion, the scouts were on a mission to plant a rain garden. It’s part of their 100-year anniversary service project. The garden acts like an environmental shelter — capturing rain water from the gutters and stopping run-off from going into the sewers.

The Root Pike Watershed Initiative helped fund the project. “It’s wonderful. We get both another rain garden and an opportunity to educate the next generation,” Root Pike Watershed Initiative Executive Director Susan Greenfield said."  From the GSUSA Blog

Wow!  What a great service project that could be morphed into a great Silver Award Project!  These Brownies really did something meaningful in their community!!!

So, how could it have been a Silver Award Project?  The small team of 2 or 3 girls could have learned in their Breathe Journey that plants really do clear the air.  Also, that flooding and wasting water is not a good thing for anyone.  They could have done some research to learn more about the needs in their community.

Discover the Issue:  Run-off water causing damage and waste

Root Cause:  No way to stop water run-off in specific places - why is that?  Lack of funds?  Lack of volunteers at the Watershed?  Lack of knowledge on the part of the community?

Connect with the need:  Identify an agency/agencies to partner with.  Find a location that has the need.  Figure out if there is anything else going on in the community to address the issue?  Find out if there are others who share concern about this issue, and ask if they can be on the team. Determine how much money it would take to make a difference.

Take Action: Make a plan!  Each girl has leadership over specific pieces:  creating education pieces, identifying native plants to use, training the team, working with the non-profit agency, etc.  And work the plan! Be sure that each girl has the opportunity to lead!

Sustainability:  Set it up to turn over to the agency if at all possible. Or have the troop adopt the garden as their project for the year, hopefully turning it over to another entity down the road. Remember, they do not have to ensure sustainability, as does the Gold Award Project.

Global: Talk about what it means!  What if every community planted a rain garden?  How would that affect our community?  the county?  the state?  Again, it's not planning for global buy-in, but it does need to be a discussion about how others could do the same thing to make a difference in the world.