The girls of Troop 40418 researched many organizations and thought about needs in their community. They all have a love of animals and so decided to visit Centre Wildlife Care to learn more about the organization, and see how they could help the organization with their needs. Centre Wildlife Care cares for injured and sick local animals for the purpose of releasing them back into the wild. CWC said that a big way the girls could help was with bringing in donations. We also noticed that there were sugar gliders and other marsupials there that were huddled in fleece hanging pouches in their cages.
The girls then organized a donation drive at their school, Park Forest Elementary, to collect items needed at Centre Wildlife Care and decided to sew pouches for the marsupials. The girls had jobs to do for the donation drive such as talking to the principal to get permission for the drive, writing a letter to the PFE families explaining the project and asking for donations, making a poster for school, and transporting items from school to CWC. A few girls used their math skills to figure out how much fabric we needed and went shopping for the fleece for pouches. Every girl sewed at least 2 pouches for the marsupials that live there to keep them warm and cozy.
Both the drive and sewing the pouches were successful projects. The girls enjoyed getting the opportunity to sew. Some were experts at it, while some had the opportunity to learn how to use a sewing machine for the first time.
The girls collected many boxes of items from the donation drive such as clean T-shirts to be used for bedding, pet food, and a pet carrier. While some of the items from the drive are disposables and will be used up; the pouches that the girls sewed can be used for a long period of time.
As a result of the Bronze Award process, the girls learned about many community organizations that they did not previously know about in their research. They learned a lot about Centre Wildlife Care in their visit to the organization. They learned how to think about what steps are needed to execute a large project, and how to work together to implement them, including thinking about assigning jobs based on individual’s interests and strengths. This project inspired the girls to continue to keep their eyes open in the community to see how they can help and gave them the empowerment and tools to know that they have the ability to help.
The girls gave a presentation about their project to Brownie Troop 40421. Not only did they get to share their work and spread the word about Centre Wildlife Care, they also got to tell these girls who will be Juniors this year about what the Bronze Award is so that they could inspire them to earn it as well.
I sew a lot and would be more than happy to make anything you could use. Please let me know how I can held.
Thank you Pat, that is very kind! You could contact Centre Wildlife Care directly to see if they are in need of anything.