Go for the Bronze!

The highest award a Girl Scout Junior can earn is her Bronze Award. In order to earn it, girls must invest twenty hours towards a service project that is sustainable. They must come up with their own ideas for projects, weigh the pros and cons of each, choose a project, do the research needed, complete the project, and then prepare a summary and presentation of their work.

Elizabeth had been wanting to earn the award for the past two years. We started researching a project about a year and a half ago with one of her friends, but it fell apart. This time, another of her friends was on board and they saw the project through.  I'm really proud of Elizabeth. She took the responsibility seriously and worked hard. She went to the first meeting and presented four project ideas. After they narrowed down the ideas, she did her homework by making phone calls or sending emails. After they nailed down the project, she did her research and her part to make it happen.

The project they chose was to plant a tree at their school. While planting a tree doesn't sound like a project that would take twenty hours, these girls are ten years old and had a lot to learn. As a Girl Scout leader, I understand that their activities are supposed to be girl-led. There's a fair share of manipulation you have to do when the girls are younger, but now that they are older I've really tried to take several steps back and allow them to work through things either by themselves or together. At this point, leaders are more like coaches--there to teach them the skills but they gotta do it while they're out there on their own. So when it came to this project, I made sure at least Elizabeth was thinking things through for herself. There were a lot of steps and she took them slowly and one at a time.

First she had to email the principal for permission to plant the tree. That sounds like something you or I could knock out in a minute, but she'd never sent an email before so she had to learn how to do that on the computer and figure out what to say and how to say it. I think she first typed chicken-pecked, "I want to earn my bronze award. Can we plant a tree at school? Where should we put it?" Well that doesn't beat around the bush, it also doesn't sound very polite or explain much. I read that and realized that I had to take my coaching job seriously, too. So we backed away from the computer for a moment and discussed exactly what she wanted to tell and ask the principal. Her second draft was less rough, and her final draft was loads better than the original. It's obviously written by a fifth grader, but she learned how to communicate more professionally and with respect.

Dear Mr. H---,

I'm working on my Bronze Award for Girl Scouts and I would like to make more shade. My solution is to plant more trees or a tree at the school. I was wondering if I could meet with you before or after school on Thursday or after orchestra to talk about this possible project.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth N---

Next she met one-on-one with the principal. I was there but sat back and let her do the talking. Of course, prior to the meeting we again discussed what she was setting out to accomplish and how to go about doing that respectfully. Though she didn't say exactly what I would have said, she was confident and polite and eventually got the answers to her questions.

So in the last few weeks, she's set up a time and place on the school's campus to plant the tree, worked with her friend to pick out a tree from Home Depot, and today they showed up with shovels and planted the tree with some help from Sophia's dad. Sophia's mom snapped this photos of their hard work.

There's a new tree on campus just south of the sixth grade classrooms courtesy of Elizabeth and Sophia. They and their peers can see their tree every time they change classes. All that's left to do is to figure out what to make and sell to recoup the money they had to pay for the tree themselves, put together their project summary, and give their presentation to the rest of the troop. I hope they inspire the other girls to work towards their Silver Award within the next three years. I have a feeling these two are already planning on getting that one, too. No manipulation necessary.