Helpful Hints

A Girl Scout Gold Award project is different from a good community service project. It should involve girl planning, leadership, and decision-making and focuses on addressing a real need in your community. When working as a group, each girl needs to play an individual role. Here are several examples of good service projects that have expanded into great Girl Scout Gold projects.

Good Service Project	Great Girl Scout Gold Award Projects
Volunteering many hours at a Park Service site picking up litter.	Reseeding an area with native vegetation and ridding area of non-native vegetation. Creating an interpretive guide on what the area was like 50 years ago and why it is important to preserve native species.
Working at the local library doing children’s story hours or conducting a book drive for the juvenile detention center.	Creating a reading program for a migrant work camp in the summer. Assuring that each child receives a book (bilingual) of their own. Matching young children with volunteer tutors from the high school Spanish club to create an ongoing service project.
Volunteering to collect games and food at the mall for a teen center.	Creating a health access booklet for teens in the community; culminating with a teen health fair with various organizations presenting their services. Admission is canned goods for a teen center.
Acting in a play to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a community.	Researching and writing a script for a cemetery tour focusing on the founders of the community. Casting parts, creating costumes and arranging for a series of evening cemetery tours to kick off the founding of the community.
Planting flowers in a park during a community service day.	Working with the city parks department to start a public gardening project in your community. Providing food to a food bank from the garden. Using a greenhouse at a school to start plants yearly with kids and retired folks as mentors.