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Community Corner

Anatomy of a Service Project

Fifth-grade Girl Scouts collect 624 books for local preschool affiliate of National Head-Start Association.

A recent forum on Patch covering how to led some parents to wonder if opening up opportunities for children to initiate and organize ways to give back to the community might teach them the value of service.

After all, it’s in doing that we learn. And when children work together, the teamwork can snowball into even greater giving than expected.

The theory was best demonstrated by the work of 10 fifth-grade Donlon Girl Scouts, who this semester pulled off a feat that would have been commendable if performed by much older girls. 

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The Bronze Award is the highest a fifth-grade, Junior level Girl Scout can earn. Dara Hogue and I, who juggle leading Girl Scout Troop 31134 between personal, work and family activities, this year encouraged our 10 energetic troop members to earn the award. Proving themselves eager and focused, they took on a project of collecting books for preschoolers with vigor.

Last week, the girls culminated their project by delivering 624 new and gently used books, plus a troop-designed bookcase, to a group of local preschools that relies on outside resources for supplemental materials.

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Standing before before the director and several staff members of the Livermore-based Community Association for Preschool Education (CAPE), a National Head Start Association program operating nine facilities in the East Bay, the girls listened as troop member Brooke Thielen read a letter from the troop explaining their project.

"When we decided we wanted to earn our Bronze Award, we knew the most important part of the project was a community service project. Because we all love little kids, we wanted to do something to help little kids,” she said. 

“After thinking up lots of different ideas, we decided to collect books for preschoolers at CAPE/Head Start so they would have a chance to do better in elementary school,” Brooke continued. “Starting in January 2011, we created a plan, made up fliers, asked businesses to help us, received donations of free copies and supplies, and shopped for everything else we needed.”

Thanks to their tenacious fall nut sales and winter , the troop was able to save money for service project supplies, which they shopped for in small groups.

Then, over the course of several meetings – often on weekends – the girls gathered to make posters, wrap the collection boxes in preschool-themed wrapping paper, make signs for the boxes, and write letters for donation requests and articles for the school newsletter.

Two girls prepared a speech for the Donlon student body, staff and faculty, which they delivered during Principal Barbara Heisser’s morning announcements on the first day of the book drive.

From April 13 - 29, the Scouts displayed collection boxes in high-traffic areas around the school. Every day, one of the girls took charge of placing the collection boxes outside rooms in the morning and collecting donated books in the afternoon.

By the end of the book drive, the 10 girls had collected 624 books for the preschoolers of CAPE/Head Start. An additional 50 donated books, which were in excellent quality but better suited for older children, will go to the Pleasanton Public Library to support the Friends of the Library's next .

Hundreds of members of the Pleasanton community participated, including families at Donlon who donated their preschool level books and one family from Hearst Elementary who donated a solid pine bookcase. In addition, several businesses in Pleasanton donated supplies and services to the project.

Craig Neidle at PostNet on Hopyard, and Sean Essapoor and Jamie Duckworth at the UPS Store on Santa Rita Road donated fluorescent copies of a flier the Girl Scouts made and distributed to Donlon families. Kelly-Moore Paints donated dozens of paint stirring sticks the girls could use to hold the signs on the book collection boxes.

Michael in the paint department at Pleasanton Home Depot, as well as Greggorio at checkout, helped with advice and special pricing on painting supplies for the bookcase restoration.

“One weekend our whole troop got together to decorate and finish the bookcase for your schools, and to sort the books for you,” Brooke read from the letter at the presentation to CAPE. “It was really fun.”

Although the book drive had a few awkward points (girls collecting books during April’s showers) and at least as many happy surprises (receiving the “military” discount at Pleasanton Home Depot), some girls admitted they would have been excited if they had gathered a few hundred books. Collecting more than 600 surprised them and proved how generous their community is.

In the end, the project gave 10 girls a “head start” on learning how to share their own gifts of time, creativity, energy and resourcefulness to help others. The project’s success – not just in helping the community but in realizing how good it feels to give – was evident in the girls’ eyes as they presented their donation to CAPE.

Cameron Sullivan is the author of the blog Candid Cameron.

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