Girl Scouts

My daughter has been a Girl Scout since she started first grade.  Brownies, Juniors, Cadettes.. she's been there.  Overnight events at the museums, up all night events at the Mall, mucking out horse stalls, and helping younger kids at Day Camp, she's been a part of everything.

Last night marked a major milestone in her Girl Scouting career.  She earned her Silver Award.

The Silver Award is not just handed out to anyone.  It is an earned award.  A project which benefits the community is conceived.  Hours of leadership and service must be earned.  40 hours must be spent on the project itself.  The write up must be sent to council, and then council decides whether or not the project will receive the Silver Award.  Many times, the paperwork is sent back to the girl for revisions and/or corrections.  Once the girl receives the letter telling her she has received the award she (or her leader) must take the award in to council in order to purchase the award.  They won't give the award out unless if the girl has her letter.

Her troop decided they were going to make blankets for Project Linus. 

If you are not familiar with Linus, they are an organization that makes blankets to give to children who are in need of comfort, either because of traumatic injury, illness, or otherwise in need.  The blankets are made by volunteers throughout the country. 

Our girls decided to work with the local chapter of Linus.  We received permission from council to hold a lemonade stand fundraiser to raise money to purchase the fleece for blankets. We raised $45.  The girls were very disappointed, as we thought that we would only be able to make 4 or 5 blankets with that money.

And then, the strangest thing happened.  We posted on facebook that we needed fleece for Linus.  Fleece came out of the woodwork!  People called and donated fleece.  Our local chapter of Linus had just received a huge fleece donation that they gave to us.  The church office would call and tell me to "Come and pick up this load of fleece before we trip over it!".  I would come home from running errands and find piles of fleece, unmarked, sitting on my front stoop.

By the time all was said and done, we had 50 blankets.  These were not the small, infant size blankets.  These were full size blankets that would easily cover a teenager, with some room to spare. 

But then, we sat down and realized that we had not spent the money that we raised for purchasing fleece.  And so, we went out and bought more fleece.

Another 20 blankets were made. 

In total, we made and donated 75 blankets for Project Linus.

Absolutely amazing.

http://www.projectlinus.org/index.html