The highest award a Cadette Girl Scout can earn is the Silver Award. It's a community service project designed to create a sustainable outcome. The girls have to finish it before they move from Cadette to Senior scouts. They can work as individuals or small groups.
Our seventh grade girls were just beginning to talk about Silver Award projects. We had interest in creating toys for shelter dogs and cats. Two girls were still thinking about what they wanted to do when I attended a Girl Scout troop leaders' meeting.
The meeting was nearly complete when the Service Unit manager announced that a local Kiwanis chapter was looking to partner with a troop for a community service project making comfort dolls. These soft dolls are given out to children in emergency situations.
I brought the idea to the next troop meeting. The girls liked the idea, and it brought the Silver Award projects together. The only problem was the Kiwanis chapter wanted to complete the dolls before we had time. We talked about it as a troop and decided to move forward.
The girls worked hard to get ready for their Silver Award projects. They gathered donated items. The dogs toys required piles of denim strips. The cat toys required hundreds of yarn pieces. The comfort dolls required the forms be cut and sewed. There were many work sessions at our house and others. They worked and laughed and worked and laughed.
Today we held a Silver Award community service day at a local community center. We had two table for each project. The girls created instructions for each project that they shared with volunteers. They were gracious hostesses and patient teachers. They closed their four hour event with hundreds of completed projects.
The hard part is done and now the real fun begins. We get to deliver the donations to local police departments and animal shelters. It's really the part I'm most excited to share with the girls. I want them to see that with some creative effort they can make a big difference in a lot of human and animal lives for not much money. If they can learn that lesson, then earning their Silver Award will be a bonus.