Become a “blanketeer:” make & donate a blanket, provide a new blanket (please have them be washable), give your time at a local chapter event or become a chapter coordinator! More information includes chapters at www.projectlinus.org/volunteer
Service Projects
Service projects are the root of the Girl Scout leadership experience. They help girls begin to realize how they can help others, what issues are in their communities that need help and provide a platform for learning project management.
We hope this resource will help you plan and implement a project that makes a positive difference in your local community.
If you want to make a difference, from start to finish, on your own, without connecting with another organization check out these ideas for your community.
- Make valentines for senior citizens.
- Donate kids’ craft kits to a local children’s hospital.
- Organize a food drive in your neighborhood.
- Plan an afternoon of fun: crafts, a movie and popcorn afternoon, or a kickball tournament at a children’s home. Plan a day of fun!
- Collect school supplies and donate to the United Way’s campaign before school year starts.
- Bring gently used board games and decks of cards to a local homeless shelter.
- Volunteer at an animal shelter- play with the dogs and cats, help to brush them, and clean up after them.
- Go through the books you’ve grown out of and donate them to the waiting room of a local dentist or doctor.
- Grow extra fruit and vegetables in your garden to donate to a food bank.
- Work with your friends to make a “New Student” guide to your town that includes your favorite parks, a map of the neighborhood, and fun things to do.
- Plant a garden or tree that your school or neighborhood can enjoy.
- Promote bike-riding and carpooling at your school to reduce traffic and air pollution.
Key Service Project Components
- See the change – identify the issue you want to address
- Plan the change – make your plans to tackle the issue
- Make the change – implement your plan
- Share the change – evaluate your success, and spread the word in your community and to your Girl Scout community
Service Project Ideas
“Uniting the children of the world in a vision of peace”
Join the movement to send the message of peace; Peace Crane or Peace Dove exchange (origami instructions on website) and celebrate International Day of Peace on September 21st. Instructional video on how to fold and “Right to Peace” sing a-long on website.
Pulseara, in Spanish means bracelet. The Pulsera Project is a non-profit organization that educates, empowers and connects Nicaraguan youth with students in more than 800 US schools through the sale of colorful hand-woven bracelets. You could collaborate with your school or participate as a group/troop… If you think you might make a profit by selling these bracelets you must submit a money earning form – you can decide what to do with your earnings to make a difference for someone else.
Organized in 1992 with a Thanksgiving weekend coat drive at one location; the mission: collect coats to give to those in need, free of charge.
Volunteers needed, age 12+ Operation Gratitude seeks to lift the spirits and meet the evolving needs of our active duty and veteran communities. You can “request a care package” or you can opt to collect cell phones for recycling even make para-cord bracelets.
Use this website not the one that takes you directly to the Give2theTroops because they are not accepting cards… overwhelmed with responses. You can, however, participate in recycling items to help our troops and our planet! Such things as empty toner and ink printers, cartridges, used cell phones, PDAs…
Knitting for charity started in 2008 as a family project; it is now a world-wide community estimated at 12,000 people in 54 countries that works to help warm and comfort the children in southern Africa. Make and send 8”x8” square, the site has free knitting and crocheting patterns.
Make this an intergenerational project by asking others/adults to help the girls learn to knit or crochet; make the project last (sustainable): introduce knit-a-square to your school community or other groups/troops
This site provides a list of towns and cities so you can contact and help provide specific support in your own town. Girls can also make placemats & donate those to their local meals on wheels.
Mission: we inspire, equip and mobilize people to take action that changes the world.
This site includes link to other service centered groups such as Hands-On Network.
Anyone can play! This game asks a question for every correct answer 10 grains of rice is donated through the World Food Program to help end hunger. Girls can research world hunger, hunger in the US, and children in the US who go hungry… Sign up as a group, tell others to go into your group and answer the question – compare your totals to others around the world!
Do something on your own?
The Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore are awesome and do fabulous service projects in their own communities and beyond. If you want to make a difference, from start to finish, on your own, without connecting with another organization check out these ideas for your community.
- Make valentines for senior citizens.
- Donate kids’ craft kits to a local children’s hospital.
- Organize a food drive in your neighborhood.
- Plan an afternoon of fun: crafts, a movie and popcorn afternoon, or a kickball tournament at a children’s home. Plan a day of fun!
- Collect school supplies and donate to the United Way’s campaign before school year starts.
- Bring gently used board games and decks of cards to a local homeless shelter.
- Volunteer at an animal shelter- play with the dogs and cats, help to brush them, and clean up after them.
- Go through the books you’ve grown out of and donate them to the waiting room of a local dentist or doctor.
- Grow extra fruit and vegetables in your garden to donate to a food bank.
- Work with your friends to make a “New Student” guide to your town that includes your favorite parks, a map of the neighborhood, and fun things to do.
- Plant a garden or tree that your school or neighborhood can enjoy.
- Promote bike-riding and carpooling at your school to reduce traffic and air pollution.
