Planning for the Fair! :D

Currently making S.W.A.P.S. (Special Whatchamacallits Affectionally Pinned Somewhere) for the Street Fair. Making S.W.A.P.S. is a Girl Scout tradition! Girls from different troops make small crafts with saftey pins on the backs and trade them with friends to put on their uniforms!

The S.W.A.P.S. that I will have girls at the fair make are tiny pom-pom cupcakes celebrating the 100th Anniversity of Girl Scouting. These tiny cupcakes are adorable and easy to make!

Materials Needed:

• Pom-poms
• Mini Baking Cups
• Seed Beads
• Glitter
• Foam
• Glue
• A Saftey Pin
• A sharpie

Steps:

1. Cut a small strip of green/colored foam
2. Staple or glue mini baking cup to the top of the foam
3. Attach a saftey pin through the top of the foam
4. Glue pom-pom to the inside of the cup (I used a glue stick) and push down
5. Scatter dots of white liquid glue around the top of the pom-pom
6. Sprinkle glitter/seed beads to decorate
7. Write "Happy 100!" in sharpie on the bottom of the foam

Street Fair Planning... :)

Planning out my next Gold Award event! Next weekend (August fourth and fifth), I will have a tent at the Massapequa Park Street Fair! (yay!)

It's going to be a lot of work-but it will definitely be worth it!

I'm going to make some posters about Girl Scouting, as well as a tri-fold board about my project. I'm also going to make more necklaces with GSA info on them since they were such a big success on the Fourth of July (as my Gold mentor says "everyone loves freebies!") and are great for spreading the word about Girl Scouting.

Hopefully, a few GS troops will show up as well to show off their banners and pictures! Alot of people attend the street fair, so I'm hoping for the best! :)

Well researching Girl Scouting history this morning on www.girlscouts.org, I learned a bunch of interesting facts about GSA throughout the years.

For instance, I had no idea that Juliette Gordon Low funded Girl Scouting herself  by selling an expensive necklace and pair of earrings!

I also found it amazing that Girl Scouts was founded in 1912, and by 1920, there were nearly 70,000 Girl Scouts nationwide!

The First Girl Scout Troop (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Very-First-Troop-Leader.html)

"My purpose...to go on with my heart and soul, devoting all my energies to Girl Scouts, and heart and hand with them, we will make our lives and the lives of the future girls happy, healthy and holy."
-Juliette Gordon Low

Fourth of July Parade! :D

On July 3, 2012 my project "officially" started!
It was the day before the Fourth of July !

Every year, there is a parade in my community that includes all sorts of organizations and people-Veterans march, recreational baseball and other sports teams march, the boy scouts and Girl Scouts march, the Fire Department marches and rides on the Firetruck, etc.

Tons and tons of people come to watch the parade each year-they line up on either side of the street for blocks and blocks.

Even though I had only been approved to start my project a week before, I knew I had to participate in the parade. It was the perfect opportunity to encourage younger girls in the community to join girl scouting!

So, I went to work right away! I spent an hour at a local party store purchasing red, white and blue star necklaces to hand out at the parade. I used the money that I had saved up recycling used bottles and cans at the supermarket (this is an AWESOME way to save Gold Award $$, by the way!). I also had the Girl Scout Tax Deductible form, which exempts any items bought for my Gold project from being taxed-I just had to pay the ticketed price and nothing more.

I then printed out a hundred little strips of paper to staple around the necklaces. They each said: "

Girl Scouts builds girls of courage, confidence and character. Join today!

Girl Scouts of Nassau County                  www.gsnc.org                          516-741-2550

The parade was so much fun! I met up with a several troops of younger girls. We marched with their banners and flags and handed out all of the necklaces that I made. It was a tough job at first, though-all of the necklaces ended up getting tangled! If anyone else uses this idea-DO NOT let fifty necklaces get tangled during the actual parade!

Luckily, there were a bunch of TOTALLY AWESOME leaders and GSA officials walking with me to help me untangle all of them! There was a lot of laughter and fun as we untangled and handed out necklaces to little girls watching the parade! :D

I even heard a couple of girls say that they would be joining Girl Scouts next year!

All in all, the necklace project was a HUGE success! Next time, I will have to make even MORE, though (We ran out of necklaces half way through the parade)! But I will have to devise a better way of carrying them around so that they will not get hopelessly tangled. :)

A Special Thanks to all of the Leaders and Girl Scouts who helped me out during the Fourth of July Parade! You all did a great job! :D

Getting Approved!

After completing the preliminary projects (ex. The Silver Award or 2 GS Journey Projects) and picking a topic and project, girls have to schedule their Gold Proposal interview with their local Girl Scout Council.

At this meeting, Council members will ask the Girl Scout questions about her Silver Award/Journeys and about the Gold Award project she wants to do.

After about a year of hard work,  I finally got my official Gold Proposal interview date scheduled! I was pretty nervous, though.

 The approval process was a little nerve-racking at first. I was nervous about how Council would receive my project. When I got to the approval meeting, though, I realized that I had nothing to worry about! All of the women there were so nice and encouraging! They had many ideas to contribute, and helped me to plan out my project. I was able to answer all of their questions about my past projects in Girl Scouting, as well as about my proposed Gold Award project.

The meeting actually turned out to be alot of fun! My Gold Award Councilor was right when she said I would know how to answer all of the questions.

 My Project Goal: My overall goal is to promote Girl Scouting and to get more girls to join!

From Brainstorming to Approval :)

It took a lot of thinking and a lot of hard work! But after a few months, I had decided on a project that would be both enjoyable and helpful within the community.

My Gold Award Councilor and I thought long and hard about project ideas that would benefit the community and that would be sustainable. We started out by listing community issues that could be addressed.

I knew that I definitely wanted to do something that involved the 100th Birthday of Girl Scouting (2012).

We started talking about the lack of Girl Scout interest in the town and community parades and in other functions.

I felt that more girls should be involved in such events to show the community how much spirit Girl Scouts have, as well as how many of us there are.

And so, I decided that I wanted to build a parade float to motivate more Girl Scouts to attend parades and events. The float would also show off our organization and would encourage more girls and families to become a part of the Girl Scouting community.

Hi, my name's Allie. I am going to be a senior in High School in the Fall, and I am currently working for my Girl Scout Gold Award.

The Girl Scout Gold Award is can be earned by girls ages 14-18 (High School freshmen, sophomore, juniors and seniors).  Girls must complete a project that fills a need and creates change in her community. Her project plan must be approved by Girl Scout council before she can begin work on her project. A girl must work for 80 hours on her project.

In order to begin working on a Gold Award project, girls have to either earn their Silver Award or complete two GS Journey Projects.

The Silver Award requires a project of 40 hours of work that benefits the community.

I chose to do the two journey projects.

There are several journey projects to choose from, but they vary depending on your age. I chose to do the  GirlTopia and the Advocacy journeys.

For GirlTopia, the goal was to create a better world for girls. I thought that in an ideal world, more girls would be girl scouts since scouting offers many opportunities for personal growth and learning. So, I created Girl Scout brochures to give families considering scouting more information. I distributed the brochures to local schools and libraries. So far they have been a huge success! For my Advocacy project, I made a blog about my Assistance Dog in training-Slick. I wanted to get more information about assistance dogs and how train them out to the public.

After I completed my 2 journeys (which took a little less than one school year), I started brainstorming for my Gold Award. The Gold Award is very time consuming, so you want to choose a topic/project that you will be very interested in. I knew that I wanted to do a project that required alot of creativity and that involved art.