Zink The Zebra Patch

For Daisy, Brownie and Junior Girl Scouts and Girls 11-17

The Zink the Zebra program provides Girl Scouts with activities that demonstrate the importance of understanding, respect, compassion, and acceptance of themselves and others.

This program acts as a vehicle to open discussion about cancer and other actual or perceived differences that touch the lives of virtually every girl and family.

How Zink Was Born

Kelly Weil (1982-1993) was a little girl, like any other, who loved friends, family, books, swimming, animals and computers - except at age eleven; she lost her battle with cancer. Kelly's story, Zink the Zebra, expresses the pain associated with the withdrawal of friendships due to misconceptions about human differences. The sensitive message Kelly relays concerns the importance of friendship, tolerance, and acceptance by others.

"I don't want people to treat me differently because I'm dying," she said on the afternoon she discovered her bone cancer could not be cured. Still, her friends drew away from her because they didn't understand she was the same sunny Kelly, in spite of her cancer. As you can imagine, this touched her deeply. Her feelings were so strong that she wrote Zink the Zebra, a story about a zebra with spots, who may be different outside, but has the same emotions everyone else has.

How The Program Works

Each girl will receive a spotted beanbag zebra at the beginning of the program and an attractive patch at the conclusion. The color depends on the age level: blue for Daisy Girl Scouts, green for Brownie Girl Scouts, yellow for Junior Girls Scouts and red for Girls 11-17.

Age level program boxes to implement Zink the Zebra are available for leaders to check out at the MRT Service Center.

Pre-planning is necessary:

Leaders must pre-order (4 weeks prior) the age appropriate beanbag zebras and patches using the order form (28Kb PDF).

Leaders must reserve the program box in order to implement the program.