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Community Service Ideas

We hope this page will give you some ideas about what makes a good Community Service project, but don't be limited to our examples -- get creative!

Planning Your Service Project “All parties in service-learning are learners and help to determine what is to be learned. Both the server and those served teach, and both learn.” Jane Kendall, “Combining Service & Learning”

Providing service is one of the four GSUSA program goals: “Contributing to the improvement of society through the use of your abilities and leadership skills, working in cooperation with others.” Service is more than doing things for others. Through service projects girls have a first hand opportunity to learn about opportunity to learn about community needs and issues and how they can make a difference. (They also gain leadership skills and learn how to work together as a group.)

Girl Scouts talk about doing good deeds, service activities, and service projects but do you really understand what these works mean? These are all good acts done for others; however, let's define them more specifically.  

Good Deed:  Being helpful to others with a positive caring attitude, as the need arises.

Service Activity:   An event or activity that contributes to the improvement of society through the use of a girl's abilities and possibility leadership skills. May include working in cooperation with others.

Service Project:  A project designed by girls that contributes to the improvement of society through the use of a girl's abilities and leadership skills, working in cooperation with others over a period of time.              

Want to tell us what you've done? We'd love to hear!  Click here for the report form.

6 Steps for a Service Project

1. Understand Service: What do you really want to do? An activity? A project? Trainings for leaders or girls on ‘How to do a Service Project' are available at the Swift Water Service Center.
2. Contribute to the improvement of society: Contact other agencies (schools, town govern­ment, other organizations) and find out what the NEEDS are in your community. Girls select one to work on.
3. Work in cooperation with other organizations: Determine who else might assist you in your service project (other Girl Scout groups, parents, the Girls Club, 4-H, the PTA, etc.)
4. Organize using girls abilities and leadership skills: Planning a time line for your service project and share with everyone involved. In order to have the local press present, notify Public Relations Manager, Molly Smith, at 603 627-4158, Ext. 119, to do a press release for your local paper.
5. Do your project and have fun!
6. Celebrate and evaluate your project. What did girls learn personally and as a group?  

Volunteer Opportunities

IDEAS and RESOURCES FOR PROJECTS

Operation Quiet Comfort

The Four Freedom Gratitude Quilts are given to injured service members to show the love and respect that we have for our troops. Made of denim squares cut from jeans and other denim articles, these squares are signed by groups and individuals and include messages of support. These messages can be something as simple as the signature of each person, or a get well wish, and some participants have even drawn pictures or designs. Each quilt is comprised of 96 signed squares, 1 square representing each of the four freedoms, and 1 square containing the U.S. Flag.

Click here to view directions.

If you wish to do this project with your troop or community, please contact Jessica Riendeau at the Bedford Service Center for used jeans.

Earth Day Bags

Four Simple Steps

1. Borrow. Contact a local grocery store that uses large paper grocery bags. See if the manager will let you "borrow" enough bags so that each student in your school can decorate one. Let the manager know about the project and its environmental education message, of course! Grocers usually get these bags in "bundles" of 500.
2. Decorate. Have students at school decorate the bags with pictures of the earth, environmental messages, the name of your school, etc. Be creative! DO NOT allow students to write their last names on any bags.
3. Deliver. A couple of days before Earth Day you and/or your students return the decorated bags to the grocery store - with many thanks to the manager! The store then distributes these bags (full of groceries) to happy and amazed shoppers on Earth Day.
4. Report. Fill out the Report Form on the project web site with a count of how many bags your school made. Please, only one report per school. All reports will be posted on the Earth Day Groceries www site at: http://www.earthdaybags.org

You do not need to sign up or register, just have a great time with the project! For more information, check the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) at http://www.earthdaybags.org/faqs.htm Another Idea: If you can't use paper bags, you can have your students decorate individual fliers, or even bookmarks, which can be handed out to shoppers or inserted in their shopping bags. These will be counted in the project tally, so do send in your report! For an in-depth look at the project, read the interview in Reading Online, March, 2002 with project founder Mark Ahlness and Jean Carmody.

Keiki Cards

Keiki Cards' mission is to send out handmade greeting cards to children who have life-threatening illnesses. Our goal is give the child support through the mail and to let the child know that someone is thinking of them. Children range in age from infant to eighteen. These cards are sent out every week to approximately 200 children (the number of children can change weekly from the addition of new children to children who have passed) in Hawaii , across the USA , and Canada but Keiki Cards is not limited to sending to these areas. Keiki Cards will also send monthly birthday gifts and holiday gifts. Children are referred to Keiki Cards by friends, family, school teachers, social workers, churches and families also find us on the Internet.

Pop Tops for Ronald McDonald Houses

Many Ronald McDonald Houses work with local recycling centers to receive money for collecting tabs from aluminum cans - including those from soda cans, vegetable and soup cans, and pet food cans.
If your local House does participate, it may provide cardboard collection containers in the shape of a house. These collection containers can be distributed to schools, community and civic groups and other organizations that want to help. Drop-off sites for pop tabs range in location, from the House to McDonald's restaurants, local banks and grocery stores.
Many Ronald McDonald Houses work with local recycling centers to receive money for collecting tabs from aluminum cans - including those from soda cans, vegetable and soup cans, and pet food cans.

America the Beautiful Fund

Free seeds for garden projects, have to write a short essay on what you are going to do with the seeds. Shipping & Handling $14.95 for 100 packets of seeds

Beanies for Baghdad

Collecting Beanies and other stuffed animals to be sent to children living in Iraq .

CPT Retherford, Darrell
C/ 490th CA BN
1-502 IN ATTN: CA
FOB St. Michaels
APO, AE 09398

Based out of GSSWC Service Center, Bedford, NH

The activities listed below could easily be developed into Service Projects with a little imagination. Please see the above chart to distinguish between the different types of Service.

• Help for Haiti - continuing with our collection of needed supplies. Troops can deliver their items to the Service Center and we will get in touch with the women who go to Haiti. For a list of the items, please call Holly at x118 or email: hvanlaarhoven@swgirlscouts.org.
• Bottles of Hope - This project was started in 1999 by a woman in Connecticut who is a cancer survivor and polymer clay artist. She found small glass bottles, decorated them with polymer clay, and brought them to hospitals for cancer patients. The recipients of a bottle write their hopes, dreams or prayers on small pieces of paper and place them in the bottle for inspiration. Please check out the web site for more info: http://bottlesofhope.org or call Holly x118 and leave your name and mailing address to have the info sent to you.
• Animal Shelters - Call your local SPCA to find out what kind of supplies or support they need. There are several items that can be donated without spending troop funds, such as old, clean blankets, chew toys, balls, cat toys, or small feeding dishes.
• Your local Food Band or Shelter - Check with your local services to find out how our girls can lend a hand. They may want help collecting items already in stock or even making posters to promote their needs.

Meals on Wheels

www.mealsonwheelsnh.org

Creating gifts to give to local homebound citizens when they receive their meals, to know that there are people who do care about them. Gifts can be a wide range of items: cards, toilette items, gifts that girls create, etc.

Meals on Wheels - the shut-ins who receive boxed meals love to get little notes or handmade trinkets. Distribution sites and phone#'s are: