Life and Projects
Last week I talked about a conversation I had with one of my Girl Scouts about just getting started. My other Girl Scout is more willing to work towards the Gold Award but is having trouble deciding on a project.
This Girl Scout changed her Silver project after she had written the proposal and submitted it. Her original Silver Project involved working with the nursing home and making blankets through a community event for the residents. I was not a fan of the project from the beginning, as I am not a fan of “blanket” projects in general, but my Girl Scout was very enthusiastic about the project, had great timelines and a clear steps for the project, and the project was close to her heart since her Grandma was at the nursing home. Girl Scouts should be girl led and she met all the requirements of the silver project in her proposal, so I didn’t dissuade her from the project she chooses.
She wrote and received approval in the summer between 6th and 7th grade. She didn’t work on the project at all during her 7th grade school year and when school was getting ready to wrap up for the year, we met to discuss the project. She was no longer enthusiastic about the project and was leaning towards not completing a Silver Project. We met and talked about it. During the conversation, she talked about how she is so busy with her 4H animals and wouldn’t have time to put together the sewing project.
I picked up the train from the 4H conversation and asked her what problems she saw that she wished she could do something about. Among other things, she talked about how there are not as many kids showing goats as there had been in the past. We talked about this some more as I saw the light in her eyes spark. She wasn’t ready to commit to a Silver project, but her mom had picked up on the conversation and continued the conversation after I left.
A week later I checked back in and my Girl Scout had been thinking about the conversation and, with conversations with her mom, realized she could put together a program to help other 4Hers learn how to show goats and had gotten a partner that allowed participants a goat to work with. She wrote a new proposal and over her 8th-grade year worked with another 4Her, who didn’t have access to animals, all the way through showing at the county fair. She put together a program for everything they worked on for the extension office (who supports the 4H program in our state) for others to use for the goat program.
Now she is trying to decide what to do for her Gold Award. She hasn’t come up with a solution yet, but she is very involved in the drama group at school and of course 4H and FAA. I am interested to see what she will come up with. I have lots of ideas, but for it to be a good project, the idea needs to create that spark in her and we haven’t hit upon it yet.
This is a girl that gets things done so I can’t wait to see what direction she chooses for her Gold Award project.