Service ideas

Contact a local nursing home and see if they can set up an arts and crafts event with their residents that the girls can participate in. The elderly love working with the kids and the kids will enjoy it as well.

How about shut ins. I'm sure that there are some in your town. They gould visit and maybe take a special hot meal that the girls have made them selves. sometime these shut ins would just like company. Some one to visit with them maybe play cards or checkers. May be something like the hot meals but Maybe with fresh flowers that they have grown themselves such as zennia or other flowers that are east to grow. They could adopt a grandparent that dosen't have any one that visits them inthier home or the nursing home.

I would suggest a nursing home or assisted living, or even a group home for the mentally handicapped. They can do things like pass food trays at meal times, wheel wheel chairs, get up a little program of music and poetry. More hands on, they can make and bake something along side the residents. Play board games. Go in and paint fingernails. Let the elderly teach them a skill.

They can't build a house but they can make up usueful gift baskets. They can include just about anything under the sun that does't spoile, they get to stuff them with pretty paper and put bows on, and they get to see the people's faces when they are received. It is a creative endeavor that will make them feel very grown up as well! If you like I think I might have some links of places where you can buy the basic baskets and any packing filler like shredded paper in bulk. Some of the places might cut you a deal since it is for girl scouts!

I used to be a Sparks leader (5-6 year olds) and we tried to start them with a bit of community service work. One of our projects was to clean up the entire outside space of the center where we held our meetings. We spent one meeting night by giving them all latex gloves and trash bags and we cleaned up any trash that was around, caught under bushes, etc., and we swept the parking lot and picked that up. It was next to an empty lot so a lot of junk tended to find its way over. We also cleaned the front doors and a couple of outside windows that the girls could reach. Another time, we made bottles of bath salts and candies. We leaders saved up a bunch of those glass juice bottles (the single serving size), then removed the labels and washed them well. Then, at our meeting, we brought in bath salts that we had bought at the dollar store (just in large cartons, sort of like milk cartons) and some bulk hard candy. The girls filled all the juice bottles, we put the lids back on and then they decorated them with nice metallic stickers. Final touch was a ribbon tied around the bottle neck (with a tiny plastic measuring spoon attached for the bath salt bottles). We took these, during a later meeting, to a local nursing home where we had already planned an "adopt a grandparent" event and they gave each senior a gift bottle. They worked for men or women (and surprisingly, several men really wanted bath salts, not candy!). We also held a "thank you tea" for the service group that owned our meeting center. They used to come in for meetings after ours. We arranged for some of them to arrive early one night and the girls prepared pots of tea and served them small sandwiches (that we had made ahead of time) and, with access to an oven there, we were able to help the girls serve up some fresh cookies (just those pre-sliced ones that bake up fast). At each place was a thank you card that they had made up the week before. The older folks really seemed to appreciate the effort :) This also works nicely for a parents night or invite your grandparents night, etc. Not sure if these help at all but they are the first things that came to mind :)

One of the projects we did was gardening, as the Girl Scout Council wanted new flowers in front of the building. I enjoy visiting the council office in this area to see the flowers and remember this as one of the projects everyone enjoyed. Another that was fun the troop painted all the benches around the fire pits and yes this was a very messy project, but the girls really enjoyed knowing the bench they would sit on next year and many years to come was painted by them.

Could I maybe suggest knitting , I loved knitting and I taught my grand daughters to knit too , they could knit squares and sow them together and donate them to an old folks home , they could take it along and maybe present it to the oldest person there , The old and the young would get a lot out of it xx

How about making bracelets and having an "accessories sale" or something? I think girls those ages would have loads of fun making bracelets, earrings & necklaces-- beading them and just letting their creative juices flow. Then you can sell them later on & maybe a center of abused women or an orphanage can benefit from the sales =).

Tammyr, look back at my posting about my son in the service. One of the responders came up with an absolutely wonderful idea that any Girl Scout troop could do as a service project and the local VFW's could be of assistance also.

Tammyr, when we do an art/craft type project, we make one for ourselves and one or more to give away. All of the items made that are for giving away are put into a special box, then at the appropriate times, we pick out what is going for that person/group or event. At Christmas, we send some of items to two different military units. When we go to the River Crossing event in Canada, our Swaps have been made ahead of time. When we visit nursing homes, we bring "gifts".

One of the most simple service projects we have done is sweeping. We get out our brooms and sweep the sidewalks in front of the businesses. We pick up the trash. Sometimes, the business owners will allow us to come in and sweep their floors or vacuum the carpets. In the fall, we rake leaves for the elderly or for the nursing homes. They usually make us hot cocoa for our efforts and tell us stories. Lots of fun.

I also think the nursing home is a good idea.. the residents would probably like someone to come in and read to them, to write letters for them etc. They could also go along the roadside in the ditch area and collect rubbish, or if that is too dangerous in your area the same service could be provided at a local park. Call your park service (state/national/local) and ask them if there are any ways that your girls can offer a service.

At this time of year we organize a 'Spring Clean'. Essentially, we choose a local area that needs a good tidy up, and collect litter. We always let the local papers know what we are doing and not only does it provide a service to the community, the kids get recognition for their hard work and it's good publicity for the scouts.

Do you have a local Food Bank in your area? When my daughter was in the Girl Scouts, we did some volunteer work at the Food Bank. The girls got to help stock some shelves. They got a tour of the whole building and learned what the Food Bank was all about and how it helps people in our community. They learned about donations of food and where that food went to. It was very interesting.