Creating Meaningful Programming for Girls

Senior Project Proposal by Gwen Raffo

When I was on my way to my first Girl Scout meeting, I felt nothing but excitement. I couldn’t wait to have my then empty vest adorned with colorful badges. However, I was very shy. Many people still call me shy today, but I was on another level in second grade. It took me an incredibly long time to warm up to people, and even when I knew someone for a while, I was still quite reserved. For the first couple years of my Girl Scout experience, I practically stood on my mom’s feet the whole time. 

As time passed and I grew older, the activities that I did in Girl Scouts started to challenge me more. No longer was I making candles and learning about photography. I was now doing hands-on activities to learn how to provide first aid help to someone in a crisis, beginning to understand how our government functions, and learning about digital safety; doing all of this while only in fourth grade. Not only did these programs and badges teach me important, and life saving skills, but I also was pushed out of my comfort zone. It was stressful for me to be put on the spot to practice first aid procedures on my fellow scouts. I was worried about writing a mock campaign speech and delivering it in front of my troop.

Once I got to my later middle school and high school years of Girl Scouts, I was pushed even further. I took on the long mountain climb that was my Silver Award, a 50+ hour service project completely planned, led, and documented by me. I had to have meetings with groups of teachers by myself, plan weekly reviews with my advisor, and push myself even when I felt like giving up. Over the summer, I completed the even bigger and longer mountain climb of my Gold Award, an 90+ hour service project that stretched further than my school. Through my Gold Award project, I continued to build my public speaking, communication, and perseverance skills, and ability to reach out for help. All things I was not the most comfortable with.

But I am here today, more confident, assertive, and sure of myself than ever. I attribute that success to Girl Scouts. If it were not for the meaningful programs and events that I participated in, I would not be where I am today. That is the magic of Girl Scouts. Children do not want to take “character building classes”, but that is what Girl Scouts is. Every badge teaches honesty, kindness, responsibility, respect for yourself and others, and sisterhood. It’s all in the Girl Scout Law that is recited at the beginning of each meeting: 

I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, responsible for what I say and do, and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout.

I want to be able to pass my life-changing Girl Scout experience onto others. I want other girls to have the same opportunities to make themselves the best they can be. I also want them to have fun in the process. That is why the essential question I will be exploring throughout my senior project is: How can I create meaningful programming for girls in an ever-changing world? In order to answer this question, I want to work under direction of the Girl Scouts organization. 

I want to discuss what the word “meaningful” means in the context of my question. I need to create programming that has a blend of fun activities that are engaging for girls of different ages, while making what they learn important enough to take with them through their lives, either consciously or subconsciously. 

The “ever-changing world” part of my question is one that is more relevant now than ever. Nobody knows what the state of the world will be in April or beyond. However, my project can be easily adapted to conform to the circumstances and safety requirements of the time. Before the closures due to COVID-19, one of my favorite things to do was attend programs and events at Girl Scout Headquarters in downtown Manhattan. I got to meet girls from other troops and explore our interests together. I went to events addressing topics ranging from credit cards to the cookie program. There was nothing better than taking the Subway down to the headquarters after a long school day and spending my evening learning about topics I was passionate about with other girls. It was a welcoming environment for learning and growth. When closures started, I was worried I would lose those programs that were so meaningful to me. But Girl Scouts are innovators, so we found new ways to connect. 

Many councils have been hosting virtual events from all over the country. This meant that we could connect with girls from far away. These virtual events have been taking place in a multitude of ways, each catering to different needs of age groups. One format is live, interactive sessions on Zoom, often consisting of lots of participation, use of the chat, and meaningful discussions. Another format is webinars to follow along with, or host guest speakers. The last format I have seen is “badge guides” formulated for individual or troop use. Councils spend time putting together activity lists and descriptions for each and every badge, giving girls the opportunity to work at home by themselves.

My initial idea was to get an internship with the Girl Scouts of Greater New York organization, but as I thought more about it, I realized the limitations that would put on my project, both in the amount of content I want to create, and in the hours I can work. Since the Girl Scouts organization works with young girls, they are very strict about policy, safety, and they are careful about what they put into the world under the organization’s name. This realization made me pivot to working more independently. I will still work with the Girl Scouts as my guide, but make it separate from the organization. My goal is to create “badge guides” for every single Girl Scout badge for Seniors and Ambassadors (high school aged Girl Scouts). This would include everything from Car Care for ninth graders, to Outdoor Art for twelfth graders. My goal would be to make PDFs with activities and steps for each badge, but as I go on, I might discover that I like working with some of the formats I mentioned earlier (live Zoom sessions, webinars, or videos). This would be a large undertaking (as there are about 85 badges for these age groups) but I am up for the challenge. 

I also want to take a minute to discuss why I decided to take on the task of creating resources specifically made for older girls. It is very typical for girls to drop out of the scouts as they get older. Whether it be because their parents signed them up when they were younger, or they just lost interest, there are far fewer high school Girl Scouts than elementary or middle school scouts. This even happened in my troop; we started with 28 girls in lower school, and now we have six. This leaves dedicated girls feeling alone. Not only do their troop meetings become less frequent, but even the organization as a whole dwindles down when it comes to older girls. I think that more girls would stick with the program if they had more resources accessible that cater to their age group. At the beginning of quarantine when I was starting to work on more badges individually, I found far fewer resources and badge guides for the badges I wanted to earn. I want to change this idea that Girl Scouts is only for young girls. I think these badge guides for older girls can build critical life skills like budgeting for the “On My Own” badge, but also give girls a nudge of confidence before they move onto the next stage in their life, whether it be higher education, jobs, or whatever else they decide to do in life.

The biggest challenge that virtual events and programming presents is not all girls have access to the same resources and materials. When council hosted events, they provided everything, from dinner to scissors, but we cannot assume that each and every girl has access to specific materials in their homes. When I am working on my own to create badge guides, I will have to pay close attention to what activities I present and if they would be accessible to all. 

I currently have two connections at the Girl Scouts of Greater New York organization that I can use as contacts throughout my project. I have been talking to Lauren O’Connell, who I worked with when I was mentoring younger girls about the cookie program, and Nyasa Hendrix who I worked with when I helped lead a virtual troop. I discovered that Nyasa actually graduated from LREI in 2015, so she would be a great contact to work with because she knows more about Senior Project. 

When considering how I would document this process and have a final product, the answer was fairly clear to me: I would house these badge guides on a blog that I dedicate to creating resources for older girls. Not only will this be an easy way for girls to find my resources, but it will also document my progress as I work on this project. 

Completing my Silver and Gold Awards has greatly helped me through this planning process. When I was starting to formulate my timeline for this project, I thought back to my Silver and Gold Award projects and what worked and what didn’t. I remembered back to two sumemrs ago when I started my Gold Award, and how I burnt myself out after doing nonstop work for the first week. So when making this timeline, I was sure to spread out milestones and pace myself more. In the first week, I want to get nuts and bolts done: creating my blog for resources and my work, contacting the Girl Scout Council to see if I would be able to use their logo, and find other contacts. In the weeks following that, I really want to spend time interviewing older Girl Scouts to get their views on how the organization does, or does not support their passions in their final years of the program. This will give me a good idea about what I should focus on when creating my resources. Once I get a good grasp on what girls want from the programs, I will spend a good amount of time researching the various Girl Scout badges. Each badge has five vague steps provided by the Girl Scouts organization that scouts have to complete in order to earn the badge. It will be my job to interpret those steps, and come up with activity ideas for all of them. I am in no way an expert on wilderness survival, and I’m not completely sure how to create a badge guide for that. I will have to do a lot of reaching out to other organizations or idividiuals who can help me learn more about the topics of each badge. Then I will spend the majority of the time writing up the badge guides, testing activities, and hosting live events to engage girls even more, all while documenting this on my own blog, creating a master guide to high school years of Girl Scouts.

All in all, this will be a huge task, not only in creating the badge guides, but also in challenging myself and my own weaknesses. If I can help at least one girl get a good experience out of her final years of Girl Scouts, and begin to become the best she can be, it will have been well worth it.