Girl Scouts and the Bronze Award

Today was a girl scout day. When my only girl was little I never thought of Girl Scouts as an activity she would likely do. Yet now she has been a girl scout for 5 years and has had a lot of fun with it. Hayley spent two years as Brownie in a homeschool troop, one year as a Brownie on her own (a Juliette) since the troop she was with ended and we couldn't find another. Then 2 years as a Junior Girl Scout with another homeschool troop. Next Hayley will become a Cadette Girl Scout. She bridges to the next level soon. Cadettes wear Khaki colored vests and work on harder requirements and projects. Most of the girls Hayley has been with for two years will be bridging to Cadettes as well. The time and place will remain the same. Not much will change except the vest color.

Hayley and Freeze heading home from Girl Scouts.

One of the things the leaders had the girls work on this year was a Bronze award project. This is the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can earn. The project needs to be fairly independent and must take at least 15 hours to complete. Hayley's project was to clean up the beach area at our nearby lake. There was a lot of ice storm damage and a lot to be done. After the project was complete there was a lengthy packet of forms for the girls to fill out (by themselves no leaders or parents could fill them out). I heard the girls talking and they all seemed to think filling out the forms was harder than their projects. LOL Basically they had to describe their project in depth and also make note of other girl scout patches and awards they had earned as Juniors. Some of these things were required before they could do their Bronze Award Project. Lastly we found out that the girls had to add a pretend interview about their project and a photo. We had only a day or two to do this because the forms needed to be signed off on by the leaders today. I think the interview came out pretty well. Below is the interview and photo Hayley used. I eliminated a few identifying details but this is almost unedited.

Interview with a Girl Scout

Hayley is a Junior Girl Scout who has been working on her Bronze Award Project. She chose to clean up a beach near her home. The beach had suffered much damage from last December’s ice storm.

Reporter: What gave you the idea for a beach clean up project?

Hayley- We live near this beach and when I walked with my dog there I noticed all the fallen branches in the handicapped parking spot. I realized that a handicapped person wouldn’t be able to park there and get to the beach easily. There were broken toys and trash all around the beach and the play area too and the rocks from the rock garden had washed away, it really needed to be cleaned up.

Reporter:
What was the hardest thing about this project?

Hayley-Moving broken tree branches, some of them were pretty big!

Reporter: Did you have any help with this project?

Hayley- Sometimes I worked alone like when I fixed the rock garden but sometimes my brothers were working on the beach clean up. They are cub scouts and were doing a service project too.

Reporter: What is your favorite thing to do at the beach?

Hayley- Playing with my puppy Freeze! I throw sticks in the water and he swims out to get them.

Reporter:
What would you say to other girl scouts thinking about their bronze award project?

Hayley- If you’re having a hard time thinking of a project, walk around areas near where you live. You may notice something that needs to be done in your area.

Photo: Hayley relaxes with her puppy, Freeze, who was a big help picking up sticks and even big branches at the lake!