Take Action and community service projects are different, but both are essential to Girl Scouting. Now you can focus on making the world a better place through your Take Action project, Bronze Award, Silver Award, or Gold Award. Review the Girl Scout Take Action Guide for the Think Like a Programmer Journey.
Time needed: 30 minutes
Materials needed: no materials required.
Setup: Review the information below, then practice with the community service and take action project scenarios. Take Action and community service projects are different, but both are essential to Girl Scouting.
Community service projects are acts of kindness and important ways to help something or someone right now. They are commonly short-term projects that almost always multiply efforts that are already in place. Examples include collecting food for an existing food pantry, providing clothing or toiletries to people who have suffered during a disaster, cleaning up a rundown playground, or picking up trash at a park, forest, or beach.
Girl Scout Take Action projects address an issue by tackling the factors that cause or contribute to it. As you may expect, these projects have a far-reaching influence. They’re designed to change something for the better—forever. Projects associated with Journeys and the highest awards (the Girl Scout Bronze, Silver, and Gold Award) are Take Action projects.
When you take action, you work as a team to:
Here are three ways to create sustainable change:
A short-term effort that helps something or someone fulfill an immediate need
A long-term project with sustainable and ongoing influence that addresses a root cause of an issue
Done FOR the community
Done WITH the community
Joining an existing effort to solve a problem
Creating a unique initiative to address an issue
Done as part of an existing team (usually as a volunteer)
Creating and leading your own team of volunteers
Working toward a goal that’s set by others
Setting the goals and leading a team to achieve them
Break into small groups and provide each group with a different scenario listed in table below—or as a full group, review one scenario at a time and work together to determine if it is a community service or Take Action project.
Community Service project scenarios
Take Action project scenarios
Volunteer to serve food at a homeless shelter
Create posters for your school or a local faith community that educate people about not dumping chemicals or other materials into storm drains
Donate toys to a children’s hospital
Lobby to have your school cafeteria serve more healthy snacks and drinks
Make blankets for an animal shelter
Work with other troops to organize an after-school tutoring center at a homeless shelter
Sing songs at an assisted living home
Build a pollinator garden for a local library and work with them to develop a curriculum to educate children
Donate toiletries to a homeless shelter
Work with your local community to develop a process for pedestrians to cross the street safely and educate the public
Organize a food drive before Thanksgiving
Work with the school to help make a mental health resources webpage
Now that you know the difference, you’re ready to go!
Prepare to take action by completing a Journey or, if you’ve already done one and you’re a Girl Scout Junior, Cadette, Senior, or Ambassador, get started on your Bronze, Silver, or Gold Award, respectively.
Troop Leaders: The instructions for all badge steps are available free of charge in the Girl Scout Volunteer Toolkit.
Girl Scout Activity Zone activities have been adapted from existing Girl Scout programming.
Adapted from Girl Scouts of Western Ohio’s Fast Fundamentals of Community Service vs. Take Action, the Guide to Going Gold, and Girl Scout Take Action Guide for the Think Like a Programmer Journey.