Meg has been working very hard on her Girl Scout Silver Award these past few months. The Silver Award is the highest award a Caddette Girl Scout can earn. It is 50 hours of learning, planning, and teaching a sustainable project that is targeted towards your community, not just Girl Scouting.
She choose recycling as her topic. She learned about recycling jeans into insulation for homes and part of her project is to collect denim to send to the Cotton From Blue To Green program. She almost has 100 pairs. She has gone to several Girl Scout meetings to teach the girls about her project, and to do a craft with them using old jeans (cup cozyies). Working on her speaking skills she presented her project and asked for sponsorship money to two groups of adults and her own troop. She toured a local recycling plant to learn how plastic is recycled, and also planned a “Fashionable Recycling” event for the our community. Meg has taken this very seriously and knows that earning her Silver Award and eventually her Gold Award will help her get college scholarships. She does think this far ahead on her own. It’s genetic she is a mini-hubby.
She held her event today. A very busy day for our community with baseball, prom,and a local festival. Her turnout was not what she had hoped for. My heart ached for her. She held her chin up, taught the kids (mostly her helpers) and the adults about her project, played games, made bracelets and then came home and went to her room for a while.
She didn’t cry, complain or whine, but she wouldn’t talk to me either. I told her that today was a success. She planned, organized, brought together volunteers, got door prizes and hosted a wonderful learning event. Today was a success. I hope through her disappointment that she can see what she has accomplished and take some learning lessons from it and move on.
Her project is not quite done, she has a few more hours to go and more jeans to collect. She will finish though. She will probably also turn a lot of today’s work into a fair project so the work will not be in vain.
I cannot be more proud of my girl. Living the disappointment and successes of your children is a roller coaster ride. I want to jump in. I want to fix things. I want it all to be rainbows and unicorn farts (a favorite saying of my girls). I also am glad to know that while disappointment is rough, that learning how to deal with the disappointments in life when you are young makes you a tougher more tenacious person.
My Meg is going to set the world on fire, just wait and see.
Oh , I have no doubt she will set the world on fire ! Meg is one of the most imaginative ,inspirational, person I know ! This is a wonderful project and will be a great learning experience ! Love her !!